Any mortgagor or grantor of a security interest or other lien of personal property who, while the lien of his mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement remains in force and unsatisfied, willfully destroys, conceals, sells, or in any manner disposes of or materially injures any part of the property covered by such mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement without the written consent of the holder of such mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement, or who willfully abandons the property covered by such mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement without first giving written notice to such secured party of his intention to abandon such property, or who removes any part of the property covered by such mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement from the county in which such mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement is filed except temporarily in accordance with the usual and customary use of the same or similar kinds of property while the lien of his mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement remains in force and unsatisfied without the written consent of the holder of such mortgage, conditional sales agreement, or security agreement, is guilty of a Class 6 felony.
S.D. Codified Laws § 44-1-12
Destruction, disposal, or removal of personal property subject to security interest as felony
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case Fin-Ag, Inc. v. Pipestone Livestock Auction Market, Inc. (2008)
Most recently applied in State v. PODZIMEK (February 2010)
Source: PenC 1877, § 579; CL 1887, § 6933; RPenC 1903, § 767; RC 1919, § 4380; SL 1925, ch 110; SL 1927, ch 68; SDC 1939, § 13.4402; SL 1972, ch 235; SL 1983, ch 306.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. 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.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.