Williamsport Pennsylvania Criminal Defense Law Blog

When people in Pennsylvania work for a company, they earn money through their hourly wage or salary as negotiated with the company. To receive this money, they are expected to perform their job at a satisfactory level. Through the course of their employment, some people may be entrusted with ensuring that the property and money of the company end up going to the appropriate places.

However, sometimes people entrusted with the property and assets may take the property for their own personal use. In these situations, people could be charged with embezzlement. Embezzlement has several elements that must be proven. One element is that the person had a fiduciary relationship with the company or other institution and received possession of property through their employment. The second element is that the person used the property for their own personal use with the intent to deprive the company or institution of the property.

Some of the most common types of property crime charges in Pennsylvania are theft/larceny, robbery and burglary. All involve one person taking property that belongs to another without the owner's permission, but they vary in key details. For instance, robbery necessarily requires the use or threat of force.

In order to commit a burglary, people must enter a building or structure with the intent of committing a crime. Neither breaking a window or door, nor actual theft of property is necessary to sustain a burglary charge. The crime is in the unauthorized entry with the intent of committing a crime. For example, a man who enters a garage through an unlocked door with the intent of stealing a car has technically committed burglary even if he leaves without the car.

A single event can change multiple people's lives in an instant. You may have anticipated a particular situation to go a certain way, but in the end, it turned out substantially different from anything you could have predicted. Unfortunately for you, this life-changing event left you facing serious criminal charges.

You may never have believed that you could have ended up in a situation that resulted in you facing charges for murder. Now, you wonder what will happen to the rest of your life due to the death of another.

Whether you realize it or not, you probably know of some white collar criminals. Many of them are celebrities or high-profile political figures. Think Martha Stewart, Lori Laughlin, Charles Ponzi (the namesake of the well-known "Ponzi scheme") and Bernie Madoff, just to name a few. As evidenced by these cases, white collar crime is almost always financially motivated, and manifests by way of deceit, bribery, and manipulation. In this post, we identify four of the most prominent examples of this type of criminal activity.

We will begin with the act of fraud. Fraud occurs when a person misrepresents facts for any type of gain. It includes making known false statements with the intent to deceive. It becomes a crime when the victim believed and relied on that information, which ultimately caused he or she to suffer an actual loss of some sort. Usually the loss in financial in nature. A second type of white collar crime is known as insider trading. This occurs when a party buys or sells stock or securities using information obtained from someone "on the inside." For example, if an executive offers information to a lower level employee that has not yet been made public, and that information influences the employee to buy or sell, then insider trading has occurred.