Pen. Code, § 538a · Chapter 8. False Personation and Cheats
Pen. Code, § 538a
Verbatim from the official edition
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Every person who signs any letter addressed to a newspaper with the name of a person other than himself and sends such letter to the newspaper, or causes it to be sent to such newspaper, with intent to lead the newspaper to believe that such letter was written by the person whose name is signed thereto, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by renumbering Section 480 (as added by Stats. 1963, Ch. 1256) by Stats. 1972, Ch. 449.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=538a.
- Text hash
- sha256 fb80e595030b0f25f738fe15c44789ac469957cddd8024cc35cc5803c2ffad3e
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.