A close friend of mine wrote fraudulent checks in several U.S. states in 1997 and 1998; most of these checks were under a few hundred dollars. The total was under $5000 for all states. In 1998 he was arrested in one of the states for one of the checks which was under $200; He posted bail in cash from a family member and he left the country since 1998. He never showed up for court, nonetheless which was set in late '98. It is now over 12 years since these crimes occurred.

My question is... is there some kind of statute of limitations for this type of crime where the charges are automatically dropped after a certain amount of time? Is there a national (Federal level) jurisdiction which the statute of limitations overrides the state level? Is this on a state to state basis with different states having different times of limitations?

I know on some very high serious crimes such as murder, rape, terrorism, or multi-million dollar fraud or robberies that there is no apparent limits of the statutes.. if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks for any help.

Regards,
Alex

First, Statute of Limitations refers to the amount of time within which legal action needs to be taken. SOLs vary by state and no, there is no Federal SOL on this crime. So we can't tell you if they have expired since we don't know what states the crimes were committed in.

However, the one state where he was arrested is a moot point. Once an arrest is made and prosecution started (which it was since bail was set) then the SOL stops running. There is a warrant out for his arrest for the crime and for jumping bail (did he ever repay the family member for what he cost them?). That warrant never expires.

Hello e:

I would add that since the checks were written in several states, that he very might have warrants in each of those states too. Not showing up for court doesn't start the warrant process. Being a suspect does.

excon