forgery question..

[knowledge14]

What is the name of your state? Ohio

Is it legal for somone to sign someone else's name for them on a government document, if they gave the person permission to sign their name? I read online that someone can sign someone else's name for them, if they have permission and if they are a lawyer or a representative for them and the intent is not fraudulent. Would this be considered being a representative for them? thank you

 

[CdwJava]

What is the name of your state? Ohio

Is it legal for somone to sign someone else's name for them on a government document, if they gave the person permission to sign their name? I read online that someone can sign someone else's name for them, if they have permission and if they are a lawyer or a representative for them and the intent is not fraudulent. Would this be considered being a representative for them? thank you

It depends on the document and the purpose. Can you be more specific?

Here is one part of Ohio law on the subject:

§ 2913.31. Forgery; identification card offenses.

(A) No person, with purpose to defraud, or knowing that the person is facilitating a fraud, shall do any of the following:

(1) Forge any writing of another without the other person's authority;

(2) Forge any writing so that it purports to be genuine when it actually is spurious, or to be the act of another who did not authorize that act, or to have been executed at a time or place or with terms different from what in fact was the case, or to be a copy of an original when no such original existed;

(3) Utter, or possess with purpose to utter, any writing that the person knows to have been forged.

Thus, it would seem that - in general - signing someone's name with their consent would not be forgery.


- Carl