EMBEZZLEMENT (from enitie.4.4.:/e, from OE. imbecile, imbeeille, Fr. imbecilic, weak, imbecile. from Lat. imherillis, weak). The fraudulent appropriation of personal property held in some fiduciary capacity, as that of agent, clerk, or servant. It is a statutory offense. The Ameri can statutes upon this subject are based ehielly upon the English statute of S Geo. IV. In addi tion to the provision that the article taken should not have been in the possession of the employer, that act required, in order lo sustain a charge of embezzlement : ( ) That the accused should be a clerk or set.• vast, or a person acting in such a capacity. (2) That the property should have come into his pos session 'by virtue of his employment.' (3) That he fraudulently converted, or appropriated, or secreted it for his own use, without the consent or concurrence of his employer, and with intent to steal it or to convert it to his own use. Al though that act conlined the crime to servants, clerks, and persons employed in such capacity, yet the laws arc now broad enough in SVOlw, both in England and in many of the United States, to include wrongs of this nature committed by such persons as agents, attorneys, factors, brokers, public officers, trustees of charities, directors and officers of corporations, etc. If, however, the re lation of debtor and creditor simply exist be tween the owner of the articles appropriated and the person who appropriates them, so that he who receives them may, if he choose, regard them as his own, and thus make himself liable to re spond to his employer for their value, the act will not be an embezzlement. If the property come into the posses-sion of the wrongdoer in any other manner than by virtue of his employment,' his retention of it cannot constitute embezzle ment. The essential element, in this respect, is
that sonic confidence shall be violated. Thus, if a servant, believing himself authorized to receive money for his master, but not being in fact so authorized, receive it and convert it to his own use, he does not commit the offense. By the statutes of some American States, it is not neces sary, in order to constitute this crime, that the property belong to the employer, so long as it does not belong to the servant or clerk, and is acquired by the wrongdoer by virtue of his em ployment.
It a person commit the necessary act of con version or appropriation, the presumption is that he meant to embezzle. Still there must be a criminal intent; and if it he proved that the ac cused honestly believed himself entitled to the property intrusted to him, however much mis taken he may have been, he cannot be convicted of the crime.
In England, one indicted for larceny (q.v.) may now be convicted of embezzlement, if that crime only be proved, and vice versa. In some American States, as New York, larceny has been made broad enough to include embezzlement. The punishment prescribed for embezzlement is usu ally imprisonment for a term of years. This varies somewhat in different jurisdictions, the minimum term being usually not less than two years and the maximum from ten to fifteen years. Consult: Stephen, History of the Crim inal Law of England (London, 1SS3) ; Rapalje, Treatise out the Late of Larceny and Other Kin dred Offences (Chicago, IS92) ; and the authori ties referred to under CRIMINAL LAW.