grand larceny

Grand larceny is a US state-law term for aggravated theft, defined as the unlawful appropriation of another person's property with intent to permanently deprive the owner of it, where either the value of the stolen property exceeds a statutory threshold or the stolen item belongs to a particular category that automatically qualifies the offence as aggravated. The concept belongs exclusively to American law and does not exist as a separate category in Danish or European criminal law.

Unlike petit larceny — simple theft — grand larceny carries a higher sentencing range and is treated as a felony, that is, a serious crime, rather than a misdemeanor. The precise monetary threshold varies from state to state: in New York, where the Sarma Melngailis case was prosecuted, the threshold is set out in the New York Penal Law, and theft above certain amounts is classified in increasing degrees of seriousness from grand larceny in the fourth degree up to the first degree.

In the Melngailis case, the grand larceny charge related to the appropriation of money from investors and employees under false pretences over a period of years. The funds were not obtained by direct physical theft, but through fraud and abuse of trust — conduct that can qualify as larceny under New York law, since the statute recognises that unlawful appropriation may occur through deception as well as through the physical removal of property.

At the federal level, grand larceny does not exist as a separate, general provision in US federal legislation. Federal theft offences are instead governed by specific provisions, for example concerning theft of government property or bank theft. As a concept, grand larceny therefore belongs primarily to the criminal law of the individual states and is interpreted and enforced by state courts.