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Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree – New York Penal Law 175.10
New York state laws regarding falsifying business records come in many forms. There are different degrees of this crime, and falsifying business records in the first degree is the most serious version of this crime. To help you fully comprehend what might happen if you are arrested and charged with this crime, it helps to understand what it means, how it works, and what might happen if you cannot prove your case. You have the right to hire an attorney to represent you if you are caught or charged with falsifying records, and it’s wise to exercise this right.
Falsifying Business Records
Being a business owner means keeping excellent records of all things pertaining to the company. Depending on the nature of the business, this could be anything from sales records to phone records. When you are an employee or a business owner, it’s your job to ensure the records are kept meticulously for business purposes as well as tax purposes. When the records kept are being falsified, it could occur in two ways.
Falsifying business records in the second degree means you’re making false entries on purpose, altering records on purpose, omitting pertinent information from records, or you are making false statements to others at the business to ensure that the records they keep are also false. If you are falsifying business records to cover up another crime you’re committing at work, you are guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree. This is the more serious version of this crime. It’s a class E felony, which means you could spend time in jail.
When you are convicted of a felony, you aren’t just going to spend time in jail. You’re going to pay restitution. You’re going to serve time on probation, and you’re going to have a criminal record for the rest of your life. There is a big difference when your criminal record has a misdemeanor charge rather than a felony charge. A felony charge has the ability to change the entire course of your life.
You might not find someone to hire you with a felony conviction. You might not find a landlord willing to rent to a convicted felon, and you might not be able to afford to care for your family. You might be tempted to turn back to a life of crime to help you make ends meet, and you might end up back in jail for unrelated crimes later simply because you were desperate to make ends meet.
Defending This Charge
Not everyone who is arrested for falsifying business records in the first degree is guilty of this. It’s entirely possible you had no idea what was going on. You were recording the information as it was provided to you by other employees, your boss, or even the owner of the company. It’s sometimes those lower on the ladder at work that take the blame for those who are higher up and making poor decisions.
Your job is to call an attorney and get to work proving you had nothing do with this crime. There is no time to waste in collecting evidence now, either. Once it’s been discovered someone is falsifying business records, the real criminal will do whatever it takes to cover his or her tracks and ensure the evidence points toward someone else.
Your attorney can get to the bottom of this with a little help from you. It’ll be difficult for you to prove you did not do this when you’ve been arrested and charged for the crime. Your boss certainly won’t hold onto your job for you or even allow you back into the office to go over records and figure things out. You must have an attorney for this, and you must stop talking to the law about it without your attorney present. What you say is going to be used against you.
Call an Attorney
When you are arrested, the officer making the arrest is required to read you your Miranda Rights. During this time, you are given the option to contact an attorney. Do it now. Do not wait. Every moment you wait is one more moment the evidence is being lost, destroyed, changed, or tampered with. You need an attorney on your side to help you ensure you don’t go down for a crime you didn’t commit. An attorney can help prove you didn’t commit this crime, and they can help make the prosecution’s case look bad. This can help you avoid conviction, but you must call an attorney right away if you want to take advantage of this. Calling an attorney can help you change the outcome of your case and free you.