WEST virginia legislature
2019 regular session
Introduced
Senate Bill 254
By Senators Jeffries, Lindsay, Hamilton, Baldwin, Beach, and Tarr
[Introduced
January 11, 2019; Referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary]
A BILL to amend and reenact §61-1-9 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to increasing the misdemeanor penalty for impersonation of a law-enforcement officer or official to include the possibility of confinement in jail.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
ARTICLE 1. CRIMES AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT.
§61-1-9. Impersonation of law-enforcement officer or official; penalty.
Any person who shall falsely represent falsely
represents himself or herself to be a law-enforcement officer or
law-enforcement official or to be under the order or direction of any such
person, or any person not a law-enforcement officer or law-enforcement official
who shall wear wears the uniform prescribed for such those
persons, or the badge or other insignia adopted for use by such those
persons with the intent to deceive another person, is guilty of a misdemeanor
and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than $100 nor more than
$1,000 or confined in jail for a period not exceeding six months, or both
fined and confined.
For purposes of this section, the terms law-enforcement
officer and law-enforcement official shall be are defined by
§30-29-1 of this code, except that such the terms shall do
not include members of the division of public safety State Police
and shall do not include individuals hired by nonpublic entities
for the provision of security services.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to add the possibility of jail time to the offense of impersonating a law-enforcement officer or official.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.