* United States Code * ** TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ** *** PART I - CRIMES *** **** CHAPTER 17 - COINS AND CURRENCY U.S. Code as of: 01/19/04
Section 333. Mutilation of national bank obligationsWhoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or
unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank
bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national
banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal
Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note,
or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
In theory, the penalty for defacing U.S. currency is up to 6 months in jail and a fine of whatever the court decides it would like to levy. In practice, such penalties are only used in the most egregious cases; forgery, for example.
Defacing Coins or BanknotesIn theory, anyone who defaces in any way a coin or banknote that is in legal circulation in the U.S. is subject to a 6-month sentence and an unlimited fine. This includes cutting, glueing together, disfiguring and even mutilating the bill or coin to the extent that it cannot be reissued by a bank.
EnforcementA literal interpretation of that law would be that if you tore a bank note into two pieces, then you could be jailed and fined if they could show that you intended to do it.
ForgersThe law is very widely drawn, but the intent is to try and catch people who are trying to fool or cheat people. Changing a $1 bill into a $10 bill is defacing the currency and would be prosecuted. This is also forgery, but that is a more difficult crime to prove.
What Can I Do?According to the law, you can't fold, mutilate or spindle money if your treatment means that the coin or note cannot be reissued by a bank.
ProsecutionYou can be prosecuted, and it would be possible (not easy, though) to make a case that you putting your name on a bill meant that it could not be reissued.
Source:U.S. Code Section 333
U.S. Code Section 331
Resource:United States Secret Service
It is illegal to destroy currency with fraudulent intent. It is also illegal to destroy paper notes with the intent to put them out of circulation. Basically, intent makes the difference between what is legal and illegal in this case; you cannot be convicted of accidentally destroying US currency.
http://answers.Google.com/answers/threadview/id/77334.html
Section 333. Mutilation of national bank obligations
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or
unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank
bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national
banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal
Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note,
or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
The charge is defacing currency.
The US government (if you count production as buying them), coin collectors, and speculators on the value of copper and nickel (although defacing US currency is a criminal offense).
The cast of Defacing Eve - 2011 includes: Leyla Hussein as herself
Yes
Defacing is defined as spoiling the appearance of something or damaging the surface of something. Defacing often involves graffiti or even breaking something.
intentionally disrupting, defacing or destroying a Web site.
ie. tatooing + piercing...it is mutilation and forbidden.
Depends where you are. In most countries, it is totally illegal to deface currency. In others, it is illegal to deface them up to the point where they can no longer be used as currency.
While it is not explicitly illegal to draw on a penny with a permanent marker, defacing currency is generally discouraged by the U.S. government. Altering coins to make them counterfeit or fraudulent is illegal, but drawing on a coin purely for personal use is unlikely to have legal consequences.
defacing
You would be damaging or defacing another person's property.
The US spelling is "vandalizing" (damaging or defacing). The UK spelling is vandalising.