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Civil and Criminal Penalties for Embezzlement

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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

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