Tampa Property Crime Charges Defense Attorney

Michael D. Kenny, Attorney

 

Brad Post: Welcome to the floridadefense.com podcast. We are speaking to Tampa property crime charges defense attorney Mike Kenny. Mike, how are you doing?

Michael D. Kenny, Attorney: I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

B: Good. We’re going to be basically talking about the overall theft today. We’ve been in a series over robbery and burglary. Mike is with the Bauer, Crider, and Parry law firm there in Tampa and the surrounding areas. Mike, let’s talk about property crimes today.

M: Sure. What we've been talking about for a while, a lot of it centers around theft, the taking of an item. Florida has taken any kind of way you can steal something, whether it be embezzlement, whether it be theft by misrepresentation, and they pretty much put all under this one statute and it starts off at 812.014 in Florida statutes and that's called Theft. It's basically designed to say any time a person takes something knowingly, either permanently, or temporarily, commits a theft. The statute specifically says a person commits a theft if he or she knowingly obtains, or uses, or endeavors to obtain, or to use, the property of another, with the intent to either permanently, or temporarily deprive the other person the right to the property, or benefit from that property. So, that part “endeavors to obtain” that’s even an attempt. In Florida, there is no attempted theft. If you attempt to commit a theft you still fall under that theft statute, if they can prove that you endeavored to take something from someone either permanently or temporarily. That’s your basic theft definition. But, theft is, as you might know, it can vary depending upon the item that is taken. So, there is a large variety of ways a person be prosecuted for a theft.

There's two main types of theft. You have your misdemeanor theft which is called petty theft in Florida. Then you have your felony theft which a grand theft in Florida. And that separating line is the minimum to go from a misdemeanor to a felony is $300 or more. So, if a person takes an item that is valued at $300 or more, that person has committed a grand theft which is a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

B: $300? Wow, okay.

M: That amount can change if the item is taken from a home. If the item is taken from home it is only $100 to be considered a grand theft.

Now, there are two types of misdemeanors. There is a first degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. And then there's a second degree misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of 60 days in jail, or six months of probation. And that is value specific. Basically anything under $100 would be a second degree misdemeanor. Or, if a person has a prior theft conviction, no matter what the value is, you would go from a second degree misdemeanor to a first degree misdemeanor. Then, of course, there's a crime called felony petty theft. That means you've been previously convicted of petty theft before, and as a result of that previous conviction you commit another crime of theft (convicted two or more times in the past), and no matter what the value of the item is, it could be a candy bar, if you’ve been convicted two times before, you get tried with potentially a grand theft charge, called felony petty theft. Again, a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Obviously, you were talking $300, but there's cases that I’ve handled that we’re talking upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. When the amount begins to go up, the degree or level of felony begins to go up. So, the third degree felonies involve when I talked about $300 or more, there’s certain levels. Levels matter in Florida because levels kind of tell you what points your crime gets assigned. And that's probably a little too much detail to get into today, but generally speaking, third degree felony at least, is from $300 or more, up to $10,000 or more, but less than $20,000. That's the whole scheme of third degree thefts, and there is a whole bunch of levels in there that assign more points. Obviously, a $10,000 or more is going to get a higher amount of points assigned to it. And then you go up from there. A $100,000, or more, is where you get to the first degree grand thefts. Those are crimes punishable by up to 30 years in prison. And they carry significant levels assigned to him depending upon the amount. That almost gives you a minimum on the criminal punishing scoresheet where the judge has no discretion if you get convicted of it.

So, those are your basic schemes of theft. Thefts are very value intense. It matters what the amount was, and obviously your history. If you have been convicted of a theft in the past, no matter what the value is, that crime can be enhanced.

One of the unique things I don't think a lot of people know about thefts, is that a conviction of a theft, no matter what the value is, can cause