Yes. Chemically washing a stolen check and writing in a new payee or amount, with intent to defraud, is forgery. If the check was taken from the mail, that taking is its own California crime, and the mail-theft statute expressly keeps other charges available, so the two can be filed together.
The forgery side: altering and passing the check
Falsely making, altering, forging, or passing as genuine any check, knowing it to be altered or forged and intending to defraud, is forgery (Penal Code section 470(d)). Washing a check, chemically removing the original payee or dollar amount and substituting new ones, fits that alteration language. Forgery does not stop with the person who did the washing. Possessing or receiving an altered check with intent to pass it, knowing it is altered, is a separate way to commit forgery (Penal Code section 475(a)), and so is possessing a completed check with intent to utter or pass it in order to defraud someone (Penal Code section 475(c)). A person who only receives a washed check in order to cash it, or who cashes it knowing it was altered, can be guilty of forgery without having done the washing.
What the forgery charge can carry
Forgery is a wobbler, meaning a court can sentence it as a misdemeanor, with at most a year of county jail, or as a felony with a section 1170(h) term (Penal Code section 473(a); People v. Gonzales (2018) 6 Cal.5th 44). For a check worth $950 or less, the limit is one year in county jail (Penal Code section 473(b)), with two exceptions written into the same subdivision:
- A person previously convicted of an offense on the list in section 667(e)(2)(C)(iv) of the Penal Code, or of a crime requiring sex-offender registration under section 290(c), can instead be sentenced under section 1170(h).
- The $950 limit “shall not be applicable to any person who is convicted both of forgery and of identity theft, as defined in Section 530.5.” In a Proposition 47 resentencing case, the California Supreme Court held that this exception requires the two convictions to have been made “in connection with” each other (People v. Gonzales (2018)).
The mail theft piece
Separately, committing mail theft, as the federal mail theft statute defines it, is its own California public offense (Penal Code section 530.5(e)). The punishment is a fine, county jail for no more than one year, or both, whatever the check was worth, which makes it a misdemeanor under California’s general classification rule (Penal Code section 17(a)). California borrows only the federal definition. Under that federal statute, mail theft includes stealing, taking, or obtaining by fraud or deception any letter or other mail from one of the places it lists, “any mail, post office, or station thereof, letter box, mail receptacle, or any mail route or other authorized depository for mail matter,” or from a letter or mail carrier, as well as taking mail left for collection on or beside a collection box (18 U.S.C. section 1708). A charge under subdivision (e) is a California case, not a federal one.
Why this is a separate charge, not an alternative one
The mail-theft subdivision answers the stacking question in its own text: prosecution under it “shall not limit or preclude prosecution under any other provision of law,” and it names the section’s identity-theft subdivisions, (a) to (c), among those laws (Penal Code section 530.5(e)). That matters in check cases, because a check carries its owner’s name and checking account number, and both count as personal identifying information under the definition that applies to section 530.5 (Penal Code section 530.55(b)). The forgery exception described above names identity theft, not mail theft, although both are in section 530.5, so how it applies to a mail-theft conviction alone is a question to raise with your lawyer.
In a check-washing scheme, the mail theft and the forgery also rest on different acts. Taking the check from the mailbox is one act. Washing, altering, and passing it is another.
Filing several counts is not the same as punishing each one. Penal Code section 654(a) says an act punishable in different ways by different laws cannot be punished under more than one of them, so how the acts in a scheme are divided can affect the sentence.
The same taking can also be a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. section 1708 itself, punishable by up to five years of imprisonment, a fine, or both. Whether a particular case is brought in state or federal court is a separate question.
What the facts usually turn on
Because separate acts support separate charges, the specific facts of each part of the scheme matter:
- Exactly where the check was taken from: a mailbox, a cluster box, a collection box, or a carrier, versus somewhere that is not part of the mail system.
- The value of each check, since $950 is the line in the forgery penalty rule.
- Any mail delivery, collection, or tracking records covering the relevant date and location.
- Forensic or bank evidence of the alteration itself, such as chemical residue or handwriting analysis.
- Who deposited, cashed, or attempted to pass the check, and what they knew about its history.
- Any other mail or checks connected to the same incident.
If you are involved in a case like this
How many separate charges a check-washing scheme actually carries depends on exactly what happened at each stage, from the mailbox to the bank. The Law Offices of David S. Chesley can review the mail-theft and forgery pieces of your case together. Call (800) 755-5174 to discuss your case.