ASSEMBLY, No. 2511

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

INTRODUCED NOVEMBER 14, 1996

By Assemblymen COHEN and IMPREVEDUTO

An Act concerning tampering with public records by public servants and supplementing Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. A public servant is guilty of a crime of the third degree if the public servant:

    a. knowingly makes, or causes or permits another public servant to make, a false entry in, or false alteration of, any record, document or thing belonging to, or received or kept by, the government for information or record, or required by law to be kept by others for information of the government;

    b. makes, presents, offers for filing, or uses any record, document or thing, or causes or permits another public servant to do so, knowing it to be false, and with purpose that it be taken as a genuine part of information or records referred to in subsection a. of this section; or

    c. purposely and unlawfully destroys, conceals, removes, mutilates, or otherwise impairs the verity or availability of any such record, document or thing, or purposely and unlawfully causes or permits another public servant to do so.

    2. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

    This bill implements one of the recommendations made by the State Commission of Investigation in its report entitled "Insurance Interests and Licensure of Former Insurance Commissioner Andrew J. Karpinski", issued in October, 1996. The bill provides that it shall be a crime of the third degree for a public servant to tamper, or to cause or permit another public servant to tamper, with public records. At present, tampering with public records is punishable as a disorderly persons offense; it is a crime of the third degree only when the actor's purpose is to defraud or injure anyone.

Provides that tampering with public records by a public servant shall be a crime of the third degree.