West Virginia Code 17A-8-8 – Altering or changing a manufacturer’s serial number, motor or engine number or other distinguishing number or identification mark; offenses
(a) A person who, with fraudulent intent, removes, defaces, covers, alters or destroys the manufacturer's serial number, motor or engine number or other distinguishing number or identification mark of a motor vehicle or who places or stamps an actual or facsimile manufacturer's serial number, motor or engine number or other distinguishing number or identification mark upon a motor vehicle, except one assigned thereto by the department, is guilty of a felony.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 17A-8-8
- Manufacturer: means every person engaged in the business of constructing or assembling vehicles of a type required to be registered hereunder at a place of business in this state which is actually occupied either continuously or at regular periods by the manufacturer where his or her books and records are kept and a large share of his or her business is transacted. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- 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
- Motor vehicle: means every vehicle which is self-propelled and every vehicle which is propelled by electric power obtained from overhead trolley wires, but not operated upon rails. 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
This section shall not prohibit the restoration by an owner of an original manufacturer's serial number, motor or engine number or other distinguishing number or identification mark when such restoration is made under permit issued by the department, nor prevent any manufacturer from placing numbers or marks upon motor vehicles or parts thereof in the ordinary course of business.
(b) A person who removes, defaces, covers, alters or destroys, or causes to be removed, defaced, covered, altered or destroyed, the manufacturer's serial number, motor or engine number or other distinguishing number or identification mark on special mobile equipment or special mobile equipment tires, the property of another, for any reason, is guilty of a felony.
(c) The term "manufacturer's serial number, motor or engine number or other distinguishing number or identification mark", as used in this section and section seven of this article, means a unique number or mark placed on a vehicle or part thereof by the manufacturer so as to identify it particularly and distinguish the vehicle or part from all other such vehicles or parts.