What Is Criminal Simulation in TN? Penalties and Defenses

Criminal simulation in Tennessee is a felony offense that covers faking an object’s age, rarity, source, or authorship to deceive someone, or possessing equipment designed to produce counterfeit credit cards or other instruments of fraud. Under Tennessee Code 39-14-115, the charge is always at least a Class E felony, carrying one to six years in prison and a fine of up to $3,000, no matter how little the faked item is worth.¹ From there, the felony class climbs with the value of the item involved.

What Counts as Criminal Simulation

The statute reaches two different kinds of conduct. The first targets fake objects. You commit the offense if, with intent to defraud or harm another person, you do any of the following:¹

Make or alter an object so it appears to have value it does not actually have because of its supposed age, rarity, source, or authorship.
Possess such an object with intent to sell it or pass it off as genuine.
Certify or authenticate such an object as genuine when you know it is not.

That first form captures the familiar scams: aging a painting or piece of furniture to look like an antique, forging a signature on a print, selling autographed memorabilia with a faked celebrity signature, or putting a luxury brand’s label on a knockoff and selling it as the real thing.

The second form targets the tools of financial fraud. You commit the offense if, knowing what the equipment is for, you possess machinery or devices designed to produce unauthorized credit or debit cards, or any instrument adapted for stealing property or services through fraudulent means.¹ Card-skimming rigs and devices that encode stolen data onto blank cards are the usual examples. You do not have to have actually used the equipment. Possession plus knowledge of its purpose is enough.

What Prosecutors Have to Prove

For the object-based form of the offense, the state has to establish three things: that you did one of the acts listed in the statute, that the object was made to appear more valuable than it is based on false age, rarity, source, or authorship, and that you acted with the specific intent to defraud or harm someone.¹

Intent is where these cases turn. Selling a replica you honestly believed was authentic is not criminal simulation. The state has to show you knew the object was fake and meant to deceive someone with it. For the tools-of-fraud form, prosecutors must prove you knew the character of the equipment and that it was designed for producing unauthorized financial cards or committing theft.

Penalties by Value

Criminal simulation uses Tennessee’s theft grading scale, with one important twist: the charge can never drop below a Class E felony.¹ Under ordinary theft law, an item worth $1,000 or less would be a Class A misdemeanor. Criminal simulation closes that door. Even a $50 fake carries felony exposure.

The felony class rises with the value of the simulated item:²

Where you land inside each range depends on your criminal history under Tennessee’s offender classification system.⁴ A first-time defendant on a Class E felony faces one to two years; a career offender on the same charge faces four to six.

How Long the State Has to Charge You

Prosecution deadlines track the felony class, so the state’s window widens as the value of the fake item goes up:

Class E felony: two years
Class C or D felony: four years
Class B felony: eight years
Class A felony: fifteen years

A low-value case has a tight window. A large forgery operation moving six-figure fakes can be investigated for over a decade before charges have to be filed.

Criminal Simulation vs. Forgery

These two offenses sit next to each other in the code and get confused regularly. Forgery under Tennessee Code 39-14-114 is about faking or altering a written document, such as signing someone else’s name on a check or creating a phony contract.⁵ Criminal simulation is about objects and their perceived characteristics: age, rarity, origin, authorship.

Faking a car’s title certificate is forgery, because the document is the fake. Treating a mass-produced vase to look like a rare 18th-century antique is criminal simulation, because the object is the fake. Prosecutors sometimes charge both when a scheme involves a doctored item alongside fabricated paperwork, like a forged certificate of authenticity packaged with a fake painting.

Common Defenses

Because intent is a required element, the strongest defense is usually that you had no plan to deceive anyone. If you inherited an item, honestly believed it was authentic, and sold it at what you thought was a fair price, the intent element fails. The state carries the burden of proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Lack of knowledge works the same way for the tools-of-fraud form. Possessing a card embossing machine you thought was ordinary office equipment is different from knowingly storing a skimming rig. The statute requires that you knew what the device was for.

Challenging the valuation is another route. Because the felony class depends on what the faked item was worth, disputing an inflated appraisal can drop the charge a class, which in some cases means years less exposure. The difference between a Class D felony and a Class E felony often comes down to whether the state’s valuation holds up.

1
Justia. Tennessee Code 39-14-115 – Criminal Simulation
2
Justia. Tennessee Code 39-14-105 – Grading of Theft
3
Justia. Tennessee Code 40-35-111 – Authorized Terms of Imprisonment and Fines for Felonies and Misdemeanors
4
Justia. Tennessee Code 40-35-112 – Sentence Ranges
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Justia. Tennessee Code 39-14-114 – Forgery