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

Pen. Code, § 538i

Verbatim from the official edition

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

(a) Any person, other than a first responder, who willfully wears, exhibits, or uses the uniform, insignia, emblem, device, label, certificate, card, or writing of a first responder with the intent of fraudulently impersonating a first responder in an area subject to an evacuation order or who willfully and credibly impersonates a first responder on an internet website, or by other electronic means, during an evacuation order or within 30 days of its termination, for purposes of defrauding another, shall be punished by either imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, by a fine not to exceed two thousand dollars ($2,000), or by both that imprisonment and fine, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 and by a fine not to exceed twenty thousand dollars ($20,000).

(b) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) “Evacuation order” has the same meaning as in Section 463.

(2) “First responder” means a first responder as defined under Section 8562 of the Government Code, or any employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Section 313 of Subchapter V of Chapter 1 of Title 6 of the United States Code.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2025, Ch. 545, Sec. 3. (SB 571) Effective January 1, 2026.

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=538i.
Text hash
sha256 239a2eab867b6d0819a9e768dc38d8fdf16921819730cf336bd91ff8c059dfda
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

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