Forgery Charges in Salt Lake County
Forgery is defined by Utah Code § 76-6-501(2) as making any unauthorized alteration to a document with fraudulent intent, or distributing altered documents with knowledge that a fraud is being facilitated. It is also considered “forgery” to produce or distribute any document which:
- Pretends to be the act of another person, whether that person actually exists or not
- Pretends to be an act on behalf of and with the authority of another person or organization. Even if you sign your own name to the document, this is still considered a “forgery” if you do not have the authority to create or distribute the document on behalf of that person or organization
- Pretends to have been executed with a false time, place, or numerical sequence
- Pretends to be a copy of a document that does not actually exist
Acts that may result in a forgery charge include passing bad checks or other financial documents, signing another person’s name to a government document, altering a document issued by a private entity and then submitting it to a government agency for identification or verification purposes, or attaching a dated signature to a document it was not originally intended for.