Maryland Criminal Defense · Theft, Property & White Collar

Bad Check Charges in Maryland: When a Bounced Check Becomes a Criminal Case — and When It Becomes a Felony

A debt and a crime can start with the same piece of paper. In Maryland, what separates them is not the amount — it is what the State can prove you intended when you signed.

By Amir Guerami, Esq. · The Guerami Law Firm, LLC

You wrote a check. The money was not there when it hit. Maybe the deposit was late. Maybe you stopped payment because the work was never finished. Maybe the account had been closed for months and you were out of options that week.

Now there is a criminal summons with your name on it, a District Court date, and a case number where there used to be a business disagreement. You keep telling yourself this is a debt, not a crime — and you are half right, which is exactly what makes this charge so dangerous.

In Maryland, a bad check can be a civil matter, a misdemeanor, or a felony carrying years in prison. The line between them is not the size of the check. It is what the State can prove you knew and intended at the moment you signed it.

The Elements

The Charge Is About Your Mind, Not Your Balance

Maryland's bad check law lives in the Criminal Law Article, Title 8, Subtitle 1. The core prohibition is Md. Code, Crim. Law § 8-103.

To convict you of obtaining property or services by bad check, the State has to prove three things together:

• You knew there were insufficient funds with the bank to cover the check and your other outstanding checks;

• When you issued the check, you intended or believed that payment would be refused; and

• Payment was in fact refused when the check was presented.

That second element is the whole ballgame. A check that bounces proves a shortfall. It does not prove intent. Every day in Maryland, people write checks in good faith against deposits that do not clear, paychecks that arrive late, or transfers that post a day behind schedule. That is a debt. It is not automatically a crime.

A check that bounces proves a shortfall. It does not prove a state of mind — and a state of mind is what the statute actually punishes.

The statute also reaches two situations people do not expect. Section 8-103 covers stopping or countermanding payment, without the payee's consent, in order to keep property or services you already received. And it covers passing a check — handing along someone else's check that you know is worthless. There is even a subsection aimed at employers who pay employees or independent contractors with checks they know will bounce, when that worker then passes the check to a third party.

The Tiers

The Dollar Amounts That Decide Your Future

Section 8-106 sets the tiers, and the jump from misdemeanor to felony is steep:

• Less than $100 — misdemeanor; up to 90 days and a fine up to $500.

• $100 to less than $1,500 — misdemeanor; up to 1 year and a fine up to $500.

• $1,500 to less than $25,000 — felony; up to 5 years and a fine up to $10,000.

• $25,000 to less than $100,000 — felony; up to 10 years and a fine up to $15,000.

• $100,000 or more — felony; up to 20 years and a fine up to $25,000.

!The Aggregation Trap

Section 8-106(b) catches people who never imagined they had felony exposure. If you issue more than one check to the same person within a 30-day period, each check between $1,500 and $25,000, and the cumulative value lands in that same range, the statute makes it a felony punishable by up to 5 years.

• A struggling contractor writing three checks to the same supplier in one bad month is not thinking "felony." The statute is.

• Each additional check is also a separate count the State can charge.

The State's Advantage

The Presumptions That Do the Prosecutor's Work

Here is what most defendants do not learn until it is too late. Section 8-104 gives the State a set of legal presumptions that make its job dramatically easier.

If you had insufficient funds when you wrote the check, you are presumed to have known it. If you had no account at all with that bank when you issued the check, you are presumed to have intended or believed the check would bounce. And if you had an account but not enough money, the check was presented within 30 days of the date you wrote it, and the funds were still short at presentment — same presumption of intent.

A bank's sworn certificate stating that the check was dishonored, that you had no account, or that your funds were insufficient comes into evidence as presumptive proof of those facts. The State often does not need a live bank witness. Finally, if you stopped payment without returning or offering to return the property you got, that itself is presumptive evidence that you intended to stop payment when you wrote the check.

These are rebuttable. They are not verdicts. But a defendant who walks into District Court alone, planning to explain, is walking into a case where the State starts several steps ahead.

The Statutory Defense

The 10-Day Window Most People Throw Away

Now the part of this statute that saves cases — and the part most defendants destroy without knowing it.

★Key Takeaway — Md. Code, Crim. Law § 8-105

A person who obtains property or services by bad check may not be prosecuted under that subtitle if two conditions are met:

• The only false representation was that there were sufficient funds; and

• The person makes the check good within 10 days after the bank dishonors it.

The same section provides that a prosecution generally may not even be commenced earlier than 10 days after dishonor. That is a statutory grace period written into Maryland criminal law.

There is an exception, and it is an important one. If you were the drawer and you had no account with that bank when the check was written, the State can charge you immediately. No waiting period. No cure.

The certified letter that looks like a collections notice is often the notice that starts a clock you can still beat. On day eleven, that door is closed.

The Insider Lens

What Prosecutors Actually Look At

When I was the one filing these charges, I can tell you plainly: the check was never the case. The paper around the check was the case.

We looked at whether there was an account at all, because that answer decided whether we had to wait or could charge on the spot. We looked at the presentment date against the issue date, because thirty days turned an argument into a presumption. We looked at whether a demand letter went out and what the defendant did in the ten days that followed.

We looked hardest at pattern. A single check to a landlord during a layoff is a story a judge understands. Nine checks to seven merchants across three counties is a different animal, and it is the reason a case gets indicted in Circuit Court rather than resolved in District Court.

And we listened to what defendants said. Bad check cases are unusually easy to prove when the defendant helpfully explains, on a recorded line, that he "knew it was going to bounce but figured he'd cover it Friday." That sentence is the intent element, delivered by the person the State has to prove it against.

Avoidable Damage

The Mistakes That Turn a Weak Case Into a Conviction

!Do Not Do These Things

• Do not ignore the dishonor notice. The 10-day cure is the cheapest defense in the statute, and it expires quietly.

• Do not explain yourself to the merchant, the detective, or a store's loss-prevention officer. Every version of "I knew, but…" is a confession to the intent element.

• Do not assume paying late ends it. Restitution after day ten is strong mitigation. It is not a bar to prosecution.

• Do not treat the misdemeanor tier as harmless. A bad check conviction is a crime of dishonesty, and employers, licensing boards, and landlords read it very differently than a traffic case.

• Do not let the checks pile up. Each new check is another count — and potentially a felony aggregation.

The Path Forward

What a Real Defense Looks Like

A serious defense in a Maryland bad check case attacks intent, not arithmetic.

It pulls the full bank record, not just the dishonor notice, to show deposits you reasonably expected to clear or a bank error that created the shortfall. It establishes a post-dated check the payee agreed to hold — because if the payee knew the funds were not there yet, the representation the statute punishes was never made. It documents the defective work or undelivered goods that made a stop payment legitimate rather than fraudulent.

It examines the presumptions and whether the State can actually establish their predicates: the account status, the presentment date, the certificate, the notice. It tests whether the 10-day cure was satisfied, or whether the charging decision jumped the gun on a case that had to wait.

And where the facts are genuinely against you, it moves to structure a resolution — full restitution, and a negotiated outcome or, where a court finds it appropriate, probation before judgment under Maryland law — aimed at keeping a crime of dishonesty from becoming a permanent conviction on your record.

The Money Side

The Civil Case Does Not Disappear

Understand that resolving the criminal charge does not erase the debt. Maryland's Commercial Law Article allows a payee to pursue damages on a dishonored check, and criminal courts routinely order restitution and costs on top of any sentence. Handling the money is part of the strategy either way — and doing it in the right sequence, with counsel, is very different from doing it alone in a phone call with the merchant.

This defense is built in the first two weeks — with bank records, with notice dates, and with silence toward everyone except your lawyer.

Bad check charges are among the most defensible fraud allegations in Maryland, precisely because the State has to prove a state of mind that most people never had. But that advantage is easy to give away and very hard to get back.

If a letter or a summons has arrived, the clock is already running. Move before it stops.

Legal Disclaimer

This article is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Maryland law changes, and every case turns on its own facts. If you or someone you love has been charged, speak with a Maryland criminal defense attorney about your specific situation before making any decisions.

Do Not Plead Until You Have Spoken to a Lawyer

If you have been charged with a crime or a serious traffic offense in Maryland, do not plead until you have spoken to a lawyer who has stood on both sides of the courtroom. Contact The Guerami Law Firm, LLC through NoPleaMD.com for a confidential consultation with Amir Guerami and his team.