The bill would create a criminal offense for knowingly performing a notarization when the person for whom the notarization was performed did not personally appear before the notary public at the time the notarization was executed. The penalty would be a Class A misdemeanor but would increase to a third degree felony if the notarized document involved the transfer of real property.
Creating a new criminal offense may result in additional demands upon state and local correctional resources due to a possible increase in the number of individuals placed under supervision in the community or sentenced to a term of confinement.
The impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources cannot be determined due to lack of data to estimate the prevalence of conduct outlined in the bill's provisions that would be subject to criminal penalties.