West Virginia Code 17A-8-6 – Injuring or tampering with vehicle or special mobile equipment
(a) Any person who either individually or in association with one or more persons willfully injures or tampers with any vehicle or breaks or removes any part or parts of or from a vehicle without the consent of the owner is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 17A-8-6
- Mobile equipment: means every self-propelled vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property over the highway but which may infrequently or incidentally travel over the highways among job sites, equipment storage sites, or repair sites, including farm equipment, implements of husbandry, well drillers, cranes, and wood-sawing equipment. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Owner: means a person who holds the legal title to a vehicle, or in the event a vehicle is the subject of an agreement for the conditional sale or lease thereof with the right of purchase upon performance of the conditions stated in the agreement and with an immediate right of possession vested in the conditional vendee or lessee, or in the event a mortgagor of a vehicle is entitled to possession, then the conditional vendee or lessee or mortgagor shall be considered the owner for the purpose of this chapter. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Person: means every natural person, firm, copartnership, association, or corporation. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Special mobile equipment: means every self-propelled vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways, including, without limitation, road construction or maintenance machinery, ditch-digging apparatus, stone crushers, air compressors, power shovels, graders, rollers, well drillers, wood-sawing equipment, asphalt spreaders, bituminous mixers, bucket loaders, ditchers, leveling graders, finishing machines, motor graders, road rollers, scarifiers, earth-moving carryalls, scrapers, drag lines, rock-drilling equipment, and earth-moving equipment. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
Any person who with intent to commit any malicious mischief, injury, or other crime climbs into or upon a vehicle whether it is in motion or at rest or with like intent attempts to manipulate any of the levers, starting mechanism, brakes, or other mechanism or device of a vehicle while the same is at rest and unattended or with like intent sets in motion any vehicle while the same is at rest and unattended is guilty of a misdemeanor.
(b) Any person, either individually or in association with one or more persons, who shall willfully injure or damage any item of special mobile equipment or break or remove any parts from an item of special mobile equipment, without the consent of the owner, which injury, damage, or breakage or removal of parts shall be of an amount of $1,000 or more, is guilty of a felony. If the injury, damage, or breakage or removal of parts shall be of an amount which is less than $1,000, such person is guilty of a misdemeanor.