RS 14:67: Louisiana Theft Penalties, Defenses, and Expungement

Louisiana theft law under RS 14:67 makes it a crime to take or misappropriate anything of value belonging to someone else, either without consent or through fraud, with the intent to keep it permanently. The charge and the sentence depend almost entirely on what the property was worth: less than $1,000 is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in parish jail, while $25,000 or more can bring up to 20 years at hard labor.¹

What the Statute Actually Prohibits

The conduct covered is broad. “Anything of value” reaches physical objects, money, services, and intangible property, and the taking can be a straightforward grab or a fraud that convinces someone to hand something over.¹

The element that decides most cases is intent. Prosecutors must prove you meant to deprive the owner permanently.¹ Borrowing without asking and returning the item is not theft under this statute. Taking with no plan to give it back is. Courts read intent from behavior: hiding the property, selling it, or denying possession when confronted all point toward permanence.

Shoplifting gets a shortcut. The statute lets a court infer intent to permanently deprive a merchant when a person intentionally conceals merchandise or alters a price tag.¹ That inference alone can support a conviction, which is why retail cases often move fast.

Penalty Tiers by Property Value

Louisiana sorts theft into four value brackets, and the bracket sets both the maximum sentence and the maximum fine:

Under $1,000: up to six months in parish jail, a fine up to $1,000, or both.¹
$1,000 to $4,999: up to five years, with or without hard labor, a fine up to $3,000, or both.¹
$5,000 to $24,999: up to ten years, with or without hard labor, a fine up to $10,000, or both.¹
$25,000 or more: up to twenty years at hard labor, a fine up to $50,000, or both.¹

“With or without hard labor” is more than wording. Hard labor means state prison; without hard labor means parish jail. For the top tier, hard labor is mandatory. For the two middle tiers, a judge decides, and that discretion is real leverage in plea talks.

Value gets calculated using fair market value at the time of the offense, usually retail price for merchandise and appraisals for unique items. When someone takes several things at once, the values are added together. Louisiana also allows aggregation across separate incidents when they form a continuing pattern.¹ An employee skimming $200 a week for two months faces charges on the total, not on any single day. That rule is what turns small ongoing takings into felonies.

Enhanced Penalties Built Into the Statute

The theft law contains its own enhancement for prior thefts in the bottom tier. If you are convicted of theft under $1,000 and already have two or more prior theft convictions, the ceiling climbs to two years with or without hard labor and a fine up to $2,000.¹ That converts a misdemeanor-level punishment into something that can put you in state prison.

Package theft carries the same enhanced range even on a first offense and even for packages worth less than $1,000: up to two years with or without hard labor and a fine up to $2,000.¹

If a store employee is assaulted during a theft or attempted theft, at least 15 days of the sentence must be served without probation or suspension.¹ That minimum stands regardless of a plea deal.

Habitual Offender Exposure

Any theft above $1,000 is a felony, which means the state’s habitual offender law can stack on top of the statute’s own enhancements whenever a person with a prior felony record picks up a new felony theft.

On a second felony, the sentence range runs from one-third to twice the maximum for the current offense. On a third felony, the floor rises to half the longest possible sentence, with the ceiling still at twice. At the fourth felony conviction, the sentence cannot fall below the maximum for a first conviction, must be at least 20 years, and can reach life.²

The prior felony does not have to be a theft. A prior drug felony feeding into a felony theft charge triggers the same multiplier. The math escalates quickly, which is why plea negotiations in habitual offender cases usually decide the outcome.

Theft Versus Unauthorized Use of a Movable

People confuse RS 14:67 with unauthorized use of a movable under RS 14:68. The line is intent. Theft requires the intent to keep the property forever. Unauthorized use covers taking someone’s belongings without permission and returning them. Taking a car without asking and bringing it back the next day is the classic unauthorized use case.

The penalties for unauthorized use are far lighter: up to six months and a $500 fine for property worth $1,000 or less, and up to two years with or without hard labor and a $5,000 fine for anything over $1,000. That gap is why defense attorneys often try to reduce a theft charge to unauthorized use when the facts support it.

How Long Prosecutors Have to File

Filing deadlines track the severity of the offense. Misdemeanor theft (under $1,000) has a two-year window. Felony theft in the middle tiers ($1,000 to $24,999), where hard labor is optional, gets four years. The top tier ($25,000 or more), where hard labor is mandatory, gets six years.³

The clock starts on the date the offense was committed, not the date it was discovered. For ongoing schemes, the aggregation rule can push the total into a higher tier, and the longer limitation period for that tier applies.

Restitution and Civil Liability

Criminal punishment is not the only money side of a theft case. When a judge places a defendant on probation, Louisiana law requires an order of restitution for the victim’s actual losses, including the value of any property not recovered and related expenses.⁴ Restitution is capped at the victim’s actual loss, and payment schedules can be adjusted for genuine inability to pay.

Retail theft also opens a separate civil claim. A merchant can sue a shoplifter for the retail value of merchandise not recovered in sellable condition, plus additional damages between $50 and $500. Many retailers send civil demand letters before the criminal case even ends. Restitution paid in the criminal case reduces what is owed civilly, but paying the civil demand does not resolve the criminal charge; the two proceedings are independent.⁵

Defenses That Actually Work

Because intent is the pressure point, most viable defenses attack it directly.

A claim-of-right defense argues the defendant honestly believed they had a legal right to the property. The belief does not need to be correct. It needs to be honest. Courts weigh whether the taking was open, whether the person tried to hide the property afterward, and whether they acknowledged the taking when asked. Openly walking off with something you believe is yours reads differently than concealing it and denying involvement.

Lack of intent is the broader version of the same argument. Accident, misunderstanding, or momentary distraction can each defeat the mental state the statute requires. The defense lands harder with corroboration: a receipt for a similar item, a text arranging a loan, security footage showing the person walked past a register without noticing.

Consent kills a theft charge outright. If the owner agreed to the taking, no theft occurred, even if the owner regretted it later. The fights tend to be about scope. A company credit card authorized for business use is not consent to personal purchases.

Expungement After a Theft Conviction

Theft convictions can be expunged in Louisiana, but the waiting periods are long. For a misdemeanor theft conviction, you wait five years after completing the sentence, including probation, with no felony convictions during that period. For a felony theft conviction, the wait is ten years after completing the sentence, probation, or parole, with no criminal convictions of any kind during those ten years.⁶

Theft is not on the list of offenses barred from expungement. That excluded list covers crimes of violence, sex offenses, certain drug distribution convictions, and domestic abuse battery.⁶ Most theft convictions are eligible eventually if you stay clean through the waiting period.

What a Conviction Costs Beyond the Sentence

A theft record follows people for a long time. Louisiana requires municipalities to terminate employees convicted of a felony within ten days of the conviction becoming final. Public and private employers routinely screen for theft convictions when the position involves handling money or inventory, and a record makes those jobs effectively unavailable.

Professional licensing boards in many fields treat theft as directly related to fitness to practice. Healthcare, education, finance, and other regulated occupations often deny, suspend, or revoke licenses over a theft conviction. Some boards will issue a preliminary determination before you invest in training, which is worth requesting if you have a prior conviction and are weighing a career change.

Housing applications, loan approvals, and volunteer screenings pull background checks too. A felony theft conviction stays visible for years, sometimes indefinitely. That is what makes the expungement clock matter as much as the sentence itself.

1
Justia Law. Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:67 – Theft
2
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 15:529.1 – Sentences for Second and Subsequent Offenses
3
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure 572 – Limitation of Prosecution of Noncapital Offenses
4
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure 895.1 – Probation; Restitution; Judgment for Restitution; Fees
5
Justia Law. Louisiana Revised Statutes 9:2799.1 – Civil Liability for Theft
6
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure 978 – Expungement of Record of Arrest and Conviction of a Felony Offense