18 U.S.C. § 912
Section 912 · Officer or employee of the United States
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 259 court decisions — leading case United States v. Wight (1949)
Most recently applied in United States v. Patrick Hancock (June 2024)
Applied most in the Ninth Circuit Circuit (26 decisions)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 18 U.S.C. § 1001 · 18 U.S.C. § 3553
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Historical and Revision Notes
Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §§76 and 123 (Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, §§32 and 66, 35 Stat. 1095, 1100; Feb. 28, 1938, ch. 37, 52 Stat. 82).
Section consolidates sections 76 and 123 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed. The effect of this consolidation was to increase the punishment for revenue officers from $500 to $1,000 and from 2 years to 3 years, and to rephrase in the alternative the mandatory punishment provision.
This section now applies the same punishment to all officers and agents of the United States found guilty of false personation.
Words “agency or” were inserted to eliminate any possible ambiguity as to scope of section. (See definitive section 6 of this title.) Other words referring to “authority of any corporation owned or controlled by the United States” were omitted for the same reason. (See Pierce v. U.S., 1941, 62 S. Ct. 237, 314 U.S. 306, 86 L. Ed. 226.)
The words “with the intent to defraud the United States or any person”, contained in said section 76 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., were omitted as meaningless in view of United States v. Lapowich, 63 S. Ct. 914.
Changes were made in phraseology.
Amendments
1994—Pub. L. 103–322 substituted “fined under this title” for “fined not more than $1,000”.