GENERAL INFORMATION & PROCEDURES FOR BAD CHECKS
INTRODUCTION
Each year thousands of bad checks are written throughout the United States. Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, is no exception to this nation-wide problem. In 2004, for example, 4,426 bad checks were turned over to our office for prosecution.
The Prosecuting Attorney's Office will try to help you if you have received a bad check.
We will first send a warning letter to the bad check writer, giving him or her ten days to pay off the check without the filing of a criminal charge. Many people accidently "bounce" a check without any intent to commit a crime. The "ten day letter" serves to separate the person who has accidently "bounced" a check from a criminal. Failure to make the check good within ten days of the letter provides us with a legal presumption of the writer's intent to defraud.
If the bad check writer does not pay off the check and our processing fee within ten days, we will file a criminal charge against the suspect and pursue the case as a criminal matter. A person who writes a bad check over $500 or writes any check upon a closed account faces a felony charge carrying up to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine as the maximum punishment. A person writing a check under $500 faces a misdemeanor charge, carrying up to one year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine as the maximum punishment. A group of checks written within a ten-day time frame may be aggregated to form the $500 amount necessary to charge a felony offense. Once we file a bad check charge, we ordinarily will not be willing to dismiss it.
In some cases, bad check writers are sentenced to prison or the county jail. This is especially true for prior offenders, con men, or defendants who have written bad checks totaling large amounts of money. Often, particularly in cases involving a first offender, the defendant may be placed on probation. When a person is sentenced to probation, the judge has the power to order him or her to make restitution to the victim as a condition of probation.
In 2004, our office collected $343,542.00 in restitution for victims of bad check offenses, some in response to the sending of a warning letter and some as court-ordered restitution. Since our Bad Check Program began in 1989 we have collected 3.0 million dollars in restitution for victims.
Lois Burgess is the Bad Check Administrator for the Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. She would be your contact person in any bad check case turned over to our office.
Lois can provide you with Bad Check Forms to use to report the offenses to us, with written instructions, and with signs you can display at your business warning that any bad checks will be turned over to the prosecutor's office.
The following information and instructions will assist you in doing everything possible to make sure you are not victimized by a bad check artist.
PROCEDURE FOR REPORTING TO PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE
1. Upon receipt of the check(s) from your bank, complete a Bad Check Complaint Form, attach the check to it, and submit both immediately to:
2. The Prosecuting Attorney's Office will send out a Ten-Day Letter to the bad check writer. You do not need to send it yourself.
3. Upon payment, our office will forward the restitution to the person or business that accepted the check.
4. If we receive no response from the person who wrote the check, we will make every effort to pursue prosecution, but we need the victim's help to do it.
REQUIREMENTS FOR PROSECUTION
In order to win a prosecution of a bad check case in court, the prosecutor must be able to prove that a specific defendant wrote a specific check. Since many weeks may have passed from the time you accepted the check until the time you appear in court, we require you to have followed these procedures to make sure we will have a winnable case:
1. Get the driver's license number of the person writing the check from his or her license, make a notation of what state the license is from, and make a notation of the person's date of birth.
2. If you do not know the check writer personally, require the person to show current identification, including a photograph.
3. Compare the person in the photograph to the person in front of you to make sure they match. That way, if you cannot recognize the person later at trial, you can testify that you always compare the person to the driver's license photograph and that you did so in this case.
4. Require a current address.
5. DO NOT ACCEPT CHECKS WRITTEN ON BANKS OUTSIDE MISSOURI unless you are willing to accept the risk of loss.
PROSECUTION MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE IN THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS:
1. If the person who accepted the check is unknown or unavailable.
2. If the person who accepted the check cannot identify the check writer.
3. If the person who accepted the check did not make a record of the driver's license number and state issued.
4. If you made an agreement with the bad check writer to take partial payments on the check.
5. If you had an agreement with the bad check writer to hold the check.
6. If the check was not dated or was post-dated.
7. Third party checks.
8. Stop payment checks are extremely difficult to prosecute criminally if the check writer is willing to make arrangements to return the property for which the check was given in substantially the same condition as when it was received.
REMEMBER: Cashing a check is a privilege, not a right. You are not required to accept a check from anyone. You have the right to insist upon cash or money orders. Sometimes refusing to accept a personal check will save you time and money in the long run.