I go to court tomorrow for writing bad checks. I don"t have the money to pay for them what will happen to me? I owe $ 2300.00 in bad checks and none of them were over $300.00. I live in chattanooga tn.

Fr_Chuck

Well we know it will not be a death sentence, so you can feel better already

Well first I don't know what county you are from, england, spain, the US, Mexico ??? Often we forget that these sites are international.

Next you did not mention whether the charge was a felony or a misdemeanor. that alone tells you of the maximum charges.

I would hope first you have an attorney since no one should ever go to court without one.

Also how many checks, and what are thier totals.

And do you have a past crminal records.

Most likely if this is your first offense and you have job and can show a plan to pay these bad checks they will put you on probation. You will have to make the probation payments or you may find youself in jail.

Now of course if you wrote a 20,000 check and only had 2 dollars in your bank account they will know this was not an accident and bad math. So they may wish to put you in jail.

magprob

Well, it is more than likely a felony Fr Chuck, at $2300.00 I would say it is. Next, we know that a felony carries from one year in prison-up to death by old age. So, unless this person came to court on a really, really, really good day for the judge, he is sitting in jail right now Fr Chuck. Let us pray that bigpeete46 is really as big as he thinks he is! And, how much did he not tell you? Oh my, what beautiful deduction by magprob! I think even Mr. Excon must agree! Yo, Excon. They keep emailing me. They just won't leave this ole expert alone! :}

Fr_Chuck

I am not sure, I know GA takes the total of all checks wrote within a 30 day period to view if it is a felony or not.

At one time TN would charge a seperate court for each item, each was a new offence. Of course if you have 10 checks, that could be 10 courts.

What will be the problem is telling why you wrote so much over. it is not like being 10 dollars over. A reasonable person ( a phase used often) would or should realise they don't have 2000 in the bank.

So the difference between accidental writing and fraud with intent will be what intent there was at the time of writing. This may not be directly known but is viewed at what a person should or would have though in that situation.

Also to who the checks are written believe it or not, since some people will be pushing the court more than others.

I would say that you need to have a plan to pay these off by the time you get to court along with some seroius probation fees each month. If you can convince the judge you will make it right, ?????. Perhaps the judge is having a good day. But yes this can be a sentence of several years if they want it to be