Civil and Criminal Penalties for Embezzlement

Embezzlement is a serious crime that carries penalties in both the civil and criminal court systems. When you embezzle money or property from a company, you should know that you are taking serious risks. Essentially, embezzlement occurs when a person or persons in a company receive money or property because they've been given a certain degree of trust. As you can tell, the law is quite vague on this particular crime.

As with many criminal offenses, the civil penalties are just as stiff as the criminal ones, though you cannot be given jail time at the ruling of a civil court judge. In most cases, offenders face criminal charges first, then move on to civil court afterward so that the company can reclaim what it lost. In other words, you'll likely be in jail with no money for the commissary.

When you commit the crime of embezzlement, the strongest evidence against you will likely be a paper trail that leads directly from you to the missing money or assets. This often occurs because the person charged is the only individual with access to the funds, and thus becomes the prime suspect by the process of elimination. If no one else could have done it, in other words, you're the guilty party.

In the criminal court system, the penalties for embezzlement usually include a jail sentence and a fine, both of which can be substantial. The United States Code, Title 18, deals with all forms of embezzlement, of which there are many. The sentence you receive will depend on the nature of the crime committed and the amount of money or value of property stolen.

For your reference, however, the most common sentence for embezzlement involves a "fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both" (United States Criminal Code, Title 18). In other words, if you embezzle $300,000, you could be fined up to $600,000 per the statute.

The civil penalties for embezzlement are not any brighter, and can be pursued with or without a criminal conviction to back up the plaintiff's claims. In most cases, civil suits are brought by the company or entity from which you stole - sometimes from the government, if you've been convicted of misuse of public funds. A lawsuit can take many years to settle, but the outcome is rarely pretty.

Since embezzlement is defined as a crime committed by a person in a "position of trust", the judgments can be large, and can exceed the amount of money or value of property stolen by the defendant. If the plaintiff can prove that the company suffered as a result of the theft, additional monies may be added to the judgment.