18 U.S.C. § 659

Interstate or foreign shipments by carrier; State prosecutions

Read at: OLRCuscode.house.gov CornellLII GovInfogovinfo.gov JustiaTitle 18 CasesGoogle Scholar

Whoever embezzles, steals, or unlawfully takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud or deception obtains from any pipeline system, railroad car, wagon, motortruck, trailer, or other vehicle, or from any tank or storage facility, station, station house, platform or depot or from any steamboat, vessel, or wharf, or from any aircraft, air cargo container, air terminal, airport, aircraft terminal or air navigation facility, or from any intermodal container, trailer, container freight station, warehouse, or freight consolidation facility, with intent to convert to his own use any goods or chattels moving as or which are a part of or which constitute an interstate or foreign shipment of freight, express, or other property; or

Whoever buys or receives or has in his possession any such goods or chattels, knowing the same to have been embezzled or stolen; or

Whoever embezzles, steals, or unlawfully takes, carries away, or by fraud or deception obtains with intent to convert to his own use any baggage which shall have come into the possession of any common carrier for transportation in interstate or foreign commerce or breaks into, steals, takes, carries away, or conceals any of the contents of such baggage, or buys, receives, or has in his possession any such baggage or any article therefrom of whatever nature, knowing the same to have been embezzled or stolen; or

Whoever embezzles, steals, or unlawfully takes by any fraudulent device, scheme, or game, from any railroad car, bus, vehicle, steamboat, vessel, or aircraft operated by any common carrier moving in interstate or foreign commerce or from any passenger thereon any money, baggage, goods, or chattels, or whoever buys, receives, or has in his possession any such money, baggage, goods, or chattels, knowing the same to have been embezzled or stolen—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both, but if the amount or value of such money, baggage, goods, or chattels is less than $1,000, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than 3 years, or both. If the offense involves a pre-retail medical product (as defined in section 670), it shall be punished under section 670 unless the penalties provided for under this section are greater.

The offense shall be deemed to have been committed not only in the district where the violation first occurred, but also in any district in which the defendant may have taken or been in possession of the said money, baggage, goods, or chattels.

The carrying or transporting of any such money, freight, express, baggage, goods, or chattels in interstate or foreign commerce, knowing the same to have been stolen, shall constitute a separate offense and subject the offender to the penalties under this section for unlawful taking, and the offense shall be deemed to have been committed in any district into which such money, freight, express, baggage, goods, or chattels shall have been removed or into which the same shall have been brought by such offender.

To establish the interstate or foreign commerce character of any shipment in any prosecution under this section the waybill or other shipping document of such shipment shall be prima facie evidence of the place from which and to which such shipment was made. For purposes of this section, goods and chattel shall be construed to be moving as an interstate or foreign shipment at all points between the point of origin and the final destination (as evidenced by the waybill or other shipping document of the shipment), regardless of any temporary stop while awaiting transshipment or otherwise. The removal of property from a pipeline system which extends interstate shall be prima facie evidence of the interstate character of the shipment of the property.

A judgment of conviction or acquittal on the merits under the laws of any State shall be a bar to any prosecution under this section for the same act or acts. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of Congress to occupy the field in which provisions of this section operate to the exclusion of State laws on the same subject matter, nor shall any provision of this section be construed as invalidating any provision of State law unless such provision is inconsistent with any of the purposes of this section or any provision thereof.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 874 cases (15 in the last 5 years), 1934–2026 · leading case: United States v. Ronnie Bryser, Gerald Degerolamo, Vincent Degerolamo

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

United States v. Ronnie Bryser, Gerald Degerolamo, Vincent Degerolamo (1992) ca2 · cites it 15× “§ 371 (1988), theft from an interstate shipment, 18 U.S.C. § 659 (1988), mail fraud, 18 U.”

United States v. Bradford S. Taylor, United States of America v. Vincent Carmen Pinto (1986) ca9 · cites it 8× “§ 2314 , possessing goods or chattels stolen from interstate shipment in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659 , and conspiracy to commit these two offenses in violation of 18 U.”

United States v. Sylvester Scanzello (1987) ca3 · cites it 10× “Appellant Sylvester Scanzello, one of six defendants named in a ten-count indictment arising from a scheme to steal goods from interstate shipments in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659 , was charged with and convicted by a jury of one count of conspiracy in violation of 18 U.”

Francisco Mena v. Loretta Lynch (2016) ca4 · cites it 6× “2 Mena has a prior conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. § 659 , which creates four offenses, each set forth in a separate paragraph.”

United States v. Michael Stanley Waronek (1978) ca7 · cites it 12× “The indictment specified that the alleged acts constituted a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659 . 2 At the close of the evidence, during the conference on jury instructions, counsel for defendant requested the court to instruct the jury as follows: “Three essential elements are…”

United States v. Louis Werner (1980) ca2 · cites it 5× “§ 1951 ; the third and fourth counts charged theft and possession of goods stolen from a foreign shipment in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659 . A superseding indictment, filed five weeks later on April 6, 1979,'add-ed two more counts relating to the theft of $22,000 in foreign…”

United States v. Gerald L. Singer, United States of America v. Raymond E. Wagner (1981) ca8 · cites it 7× “1980) ( 18 U.S.C. § 659 ), cert, denied, 449 U.S.”

United States v. Thomas E. Flaherty, United States of America v. James R. Kearns, Jr., United States of America v. Stuar (1981) ca1 · cites it 5× “§ 371 and of receiving and possessing a stolen interstate shipment of beef in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659 . The appellants were also indicted for aiding and abetting under 18 U.”

United States v. George Wilson (1996) ca7 · cites it 6× “In Shreveport, the Court upheld rate restrictions on railroads travelling between Texas and Louisiana even though the restrictions effectively abrogated rates set for intrastate travel, holding that Congress’s “authority, extending to these interstate carriers as instruments of…”

United States v. Eddie Lee Galloway (1992) ca8 · cites it 4× “The district court sentenced Eddie Lee Galloway to twenty-four months based on a single count of theft from interstate shipment under 18 U.S.C. § 659 (1988) after it held that the Constitution prevented it from considering other uncharged property theft offenses.”

United States v. James Marshall Shackelford (84-5995), Douglas McArthur Brooks (84-5998) (1985) ca6 · cites it 5× “Shackelford and Douglas Brooks, defendants, appeal from jury convictions, Brooks for embezzling food goods shipped in interstate commerce, ( 18 U.S.C. § 659 ); and Shackelford for buying and receiving the embezzled food goods ( 18 U.”

United States v. Charles David Parker A/K/A Ramp Parker (1984) ca11 · cites it 7× “RONEY, Circuit Judge: The principal issue in this case is whether to convict under 18 U.S.C.A. § 659 , which makes it a crime to steal from interstate or foreign carrier shipments, the evidence must show the goods were stolen from one of the places enumerated in the statute.”

Show all 874 citing cases →

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.