Criminal law
Part of the common law series
Elements of crimes
Actus reus  · Causation  · Concurrence
Mens rea  · Intention  · Recklessness
Willful blindness  · Criminal negligence
Ignorantia juris non excusat
Corporate liability
Categories of crimes
Felony/Indictable
Misdemeanor/Summary
Hybrid offence  · Lesser included offense
Regulatory offences
International crime
Crimes against the person
Assault  · Battery  · Robbery
Kidnapping  · Rape
Mayhem  · Manslaughter  · Murder
Crimes against property
Burglary  · Larceny  · Arson
Embezzlement  · False pretenses
Extortion  · Forgery
Crimes against justice
Bribery  · Perjury
Obstruction of justice
Misprision of felony
Inchoate offenses
Solicitation  · Attempt
Conspiracy  · Accessory
Defenses to crime
Automatism  · Excuse and exculpation
Self defense and defense of others
Necessity  · Duress  · Infancy
Mistake of law  · Mistake of fact
Insanity/mental disorder  · Entrapment
Intoxication  · Justifiable homicide
See also Criminal Procedure
Other areas of the common law
Contract law  · Tort law  · Property law
Wills and trusts  · Evidence

Embezzlement is the fraudulent conversion of property from a property owner. For instance, a clerk or cashier can embezzle money from his employer; a public officer can embezzle funds from the treasury. Image File history File links SmallLadyJustice. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ... This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ... Actus reus is the action (or inaction, in the case of criminal negligence and similar crimes which are sometimes called acts of omission) which, in combination with the mens rea (guilty mind), produces criminal liability in common law based criminal law jurisdictions such as the United States, United Kingdom. ... In law, causation is the name given to the process of testing whether defendants should be fixed with liability for the outcome to their acts and omissions that injure or cause loss to others. ... Concurrence or Simultaneity is a legal term, from Western jurisprudence, referring to the simultaneous occurrence of actus reus (bad action) and mens rea (bad mind), which must be present for a crime to have occurred; except in crimes of strict liability. ... Mens rea is a Criminal Law concept which focuses on the mental state of the accused and requires proof of a positive state of mind such as intention, recklessness or wilful blindness, or criminal negligence. ... In the criminal law, intention is one of the three general classes of mens rea necessary to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability crime. ... In the criminal law, recklessness (sometimes also termed wilful blindness) is one of the three possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for guilty mind). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both an actus reus... Willful blindess is a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable. ... Criminal negligence, in the realm of criminal common law, is a legal term of art for a state of mind which is careless, inattentive, neglectful, willfully blind, or reckless; it is the mens rea part of a crime which, if occurring simultaneously with the actus reus, gives rise to criminal... Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for ignorance of the law is no excuse) is a legal doctrine holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape punishment for violating the law merely because they were unaware of the law; that is... In the criminal law, corporate liability is an aspect of criminal vicarious liability and determines the extent to which a corporation as a fictitious person can be convicted of offences committed by the natural persons it employs. ... A felony, in many common law legal systems, is the term for a very serious crime; misdemeanors are considered to be less serious. ... In many common law jurisdictions (e. ... A misdemeanors (or misdemeanour), in many common law legal systems, is a lesser criminal act. ... A hybrid offence or dual offence are the special offences in Canadian criminal law where the prosecution may choose whether to proceed with a summary offence or an indictment. ... A lesser included offense, in criminal law, is a crime for which all of the elements necessary to impose liability are also elements found in a more serious crime. ... Regulatory offences are a class of crime in which the standard for proving culpability has been lowered so as not to require any fault elements. ... International law deals with the relationships between states, or between persons or entities in different states. ... In many common law jurisdictions, the crime of battery involves an injury or other contact upon the person of another in a manner likely to cause bodily harm. ... Mayhem, under the common law of crimes, consisted of the intentional and wanton removal of a body part that would handicap a persons ability to defend themselves in combat. ... Larceny is a common law crime involving stealing. ... The Skyline Parkway Motel in Afton, Virginia after an arson fire on July 9, 2004. ... False pretenses is a common law crime. ... Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to this person, reputation, or property. ... Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. ... Bribery is the practice of offering a professional or an authority person money or other favours in order to circumvent ethics or other rules in a variety of situations. ... Perjury is lying or making verifiably false statements under oath in a court of law. ... Obstruction of justice, in a common law state, refers to the crime of offering interference of any sort to the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. ... Misprision of felony, under the common law of England, was the crime of failing to report knowledge of a felony to the appropriate authorities. ... An inchoate offense is a crime. ... Solicitation is a crime; it is an inchoate offense that consists of a person inciting, counseling, advising, urging, or commanding another to commit a crime with the specific intent that the person solicited commit the crime. ... The crime of attempt occurs when a person does an act amounting to more than mere preparation for a criminal offense, with specific intent to commit a crime, if that act tends but fails to effect the commission of the offense intended. ... In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more natural persons to break the law at some time in the future, so a natural person identified with the mind of a legal entity cannot conspire with the company alone. ... An accessory is a person who assists in or conceals a crime, but does not actually participate in the commission of the crime. ... Automatism is a disassociative state where the individual suffering from it has no control over their actions. ... In jurisprudence, an excuse is a defense in which a defendant argues that he or she was not liable for his or her actions at the time a law was broken and thus he or she should not be held liable for a crime. ... Self defense and defense of others (sometimes called alter ego defense or defense of a third person) are a pair of legal theories under which otherwise tortious or illegal acts may be justified when committed for the purpose of protecting oneself, or for the purpose of protecting another person. ... In criminal law, necessity is a possible excuse for breaking the law. ... Duress (coercion) (as a term of jurisprudence) is a possible defense, via excuse, by which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law. ... Defense of infancy is a form of defense by excuse; in which a defendant argues that, at the time a law was broken, they were not criminally liable for their actions, as they had not reached an age of criminal responsibility. ... Mistake of law is a defense sometimes raised in criminal cases, although rarely with any success. ... Mistake of fact is an affirmative defense to a crime where the mistake negates the culpable mental state. ... In a criminal trial, the insanity defenses are possible defenses by excuse, via which defendants may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were mentally ill or mentally incompetent at the time of their allegedly criminal actions. ... In criminal law of commonwealth countries, the defense of mental disorder - sometimes called the defence of mental illness - is a legal defence by excuse, by which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were at the time of their... In jurisprudence, entrapment is a procedural defense by which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law, because they were induced (or entrapped) by the police to commit said acts. ... An intoxication defense, in criminal law, is a defense by excuse, via which a defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law, because they were intoxicated. ... A non-criminal homicide, usually committed in self-defense or in defense of another, may be called justifiable homicide in some cases. ... Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated the criminal law. ... A contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. ... In the common law, a tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. ... Property law is the law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land as distinct from personal or movable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system. ... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... The law of trusts and estates is generally considered the body of law which governs the management of personal affairs and the disposition of property of an individual in anticipation and the event of such persons incapacity or death, also known as the law of successions in civil law. ... The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (eg. ... In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain, although it has a more specific legal meaning, the exact details varying between jurisdictions. ... // Use of the term The concept of property or ownership has no single or universally accepted definition. ... Money Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. ... Funding or financing is to provide capital (funds), which means money for a project, a person, a business or any other private or public institution. ... A treasury is the part of a government which manages all money and revenue. ...

Embezzlement differs from larceny in two ways. First, in embezzlement, an actual conversion must occur; second, the original taking must not be trespassory. That is, the embezzler must have had the right to possess the item, and used that position of trust to convert the property. Embezzlement may range from the very minor, involving a few dollars to immense, involving millions of dollars and very sophisticated schemes. Larceny is a common law crime involving stealing. ... The dollar (represented by the dollar sign: $) is the name of the official currency in several countries, dependencies and other regions. ...

Conversion requires that the theft seriously interfere with the property, rather than just relocate it. As in larceny, the measure is not by the gain to the thief, but the loss to the true owner. Embezzlement was statutorily created to deal with situations where theft could occur while the thief himself was innocent of larceny---typically because of the "lawful possession" element. That is, embezzlement fills in the blanks where larceny cannot.

Embezzlement sometimes involves falsification of records in order to conceal the theft. Embezzlers commonly steal relatively small amounts repeatedly over a long period, although some embezzlers steal one large sum at once. Some very successful embezzlement schemes have continued for many years before being detected due to the skill of the embezzler in concealing the nature of the transactions. Falsification is the act of disproving a theory. ... Everyday instance of theft: the bike which fits on this wheel has disappeared Theft (also known as stealing) is in general, the wrongful taking of someone elses property without that persons willful consent. ... The term steal can mean either: To commit theft In baseball, to gain a stolen base In basketball, stealing the ball from the opponents team This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

One of the most common methods of embezzlement is to under-report income, and pocket the difference. Another method is to create a false vendor account, and to supply false bills to the company being embezzled so that the checks that are cut appear completely legitimate. Yet another method is to create phantom employees, who are then paid with payroll checks. Income, generally defined, is the money that is received as a result of the normal business activities of an individual or a business. ... A bill is a document requesting payment for goods and services previously supplied. ... Legitimacy is the popular acceptance of a governing regime or law. ...

The latter two methods should be uncovered by routine audits, but often aren't if the audit is not sufficiently in-depth, because the paperwork appears to be in order. The first method is easier to detect if all transactions are by check or other instrument, but if many transactions are in cash, it is much more difficult to identify. Employers have developed a number of strategies to deal with this problem. In fact, cash registers were invented for just this reason. A cash register or till (British English) is a mechanical or electronic device for calculating and recording sales transactions, and an attached cash drawer for storing currency. ...