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Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 09:47 AM EDT |
Well, you need to be more precise in your language
to get it right. Conversion
and criminal
conversion
are two different things. When you mean criminal
conversion, you
can't leave off the "criminal" part,
because the law is precise, so it's still
not
true to say that conversion can be a crime.
The difference is
this:A person who knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized
control over property of another person commits criminal conversion. The
element of knowledge is found when the accused person engages in the conduct and
he/she is aware of a high probability that he/she is doing so. An essential
element of criminal conversion is that “the property must be owned by another
and the conversion thereof must be without the consent and against the will of
the party, to whom the property belongs, coupled with the fraudulent intent to
deprive the owner of the property[i].”
Unlike criminal conversion, the mens
rea is not an element and good faith is not a defense in the case of tortious
conversion. Conversion, as a tort, consists “either in the appropriation of the
personal property of another to the party’s own use and benefit, or in its
destruction, or in exercising dominion over it, in exclusion and defiance of the
rights of the owner or lawful possessor, or in withholding it from his
possession, under a claim and title inconsistent with the
owner’s[ii].”
And that distinguishes it from theft, by the way, the
degree of knowledge and intent.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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