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Pen. Code, § 538f · Chapter 8. False Personation and Cheats

Pen. Code, § 538f

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

Any person, other than an employee of a public utility or district as defined in Sections 216 and 11503 of the Public Utilities Code, respectively, who willfully presents themselves to a utility or district customer with the intent of fraudulently personating an employee of a public utility or district, or of fraudulently inducing the belief that they are an employee of a public utility or district, or who willfully and credibly impersonates an employee of a public utility or district on an internet website, by other electronic means, or by any other means, for purposes of defrauding another, is guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed six months, or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit conduct that arguably constitutes protected activity under state labor law or the National Labor Relations Act (Title 29, United States Code, Section 151 and following).

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2025, Ch. 126, Sec. 5. (SB 805) Effective September 20, 2025.

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&sectionNum=538f.
Text hash
sha256 335d10a6ba4a2955da16e56fe67178ffa510ed1099e4a0d07839f40482162db3
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

This section cites

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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.