State Sen. April Weaver (R-Brierfield) discussed the recent success of her anti-porch piracy legislation during a Wednesday edition of Mobile radio's FM Talk 106.5.
Weaver's bill, known as Act 2025-428, outlines various charges related to porch piracy and mandates increased penalties for those convicted of the criminal act.
"First couple of years, I didn't have much traction, and I kept working on it," Weaver said on "The Jeff Poor Show." "I actually started working on porch pirates because of an issue that happened in my district and then last year, it was a great year, because there was a lot of that going on, and there was some more interest, specifically from some people who had contacted the lieutenant governor's office. So I was able to work with lieutenant Governor's office in dealing with some stakeholders at the federal level who were dealing with some mail theft issues."
Weaver described the process for prosecuting porch pirates in Alabama before her legislation was enacted.
"In the beginning, we weren't really able to do a whole lot to them [porch pirates] because the law was written so that you had to deal with them based on the value of the package that they stole," Weaver stated. "It was kind of like a graph sheet, because they were picking up the box and they didn't know what was in it. So sometimes it might be something like your paper towel delivery from Amazon, but some other time it might be something that costs a couple thousand dollars, and it was a big issue."
The legislator elaborated on several changes to state law resulting from her bill.
"Last year, we were able to look, and instead of just making it the blanket, here's the theft, because you stole the package, we were able to look at it and write the bill based on the number of residences that were affected," explained Weaver. "So you had penalties that increased based on if it was one to nine or 10 to 29 and then over 30 it was a different issue. We were also able to write some things into the bill that if they used your information for identity theft, it was an even greater penalty for them."
She added, "It's been one of those bills that's been wildly successful, and it's always great to sit back and see that you pass the law and it actually is affecting people in a good way in your district."
According to the provisions of Act 2025-428, stealing a package, letter or other item delivered by the U.S. Postal Service or other delivery service now results in:
- A Class A misdemeanor, the highest and most serious level of misdemeanor, punishable by a year in prison and a fine of up to $6,000 if taken from one to nine addresses. Receiving a known pirated or stolen package is also a Class A misdemeanor.
- A Class D felony punishable by one to five years in prison and a fine of up to $7,500 if taken from 10 to 29 addresses.
- A Class C felony punishable by one to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $7,500 if taken from 30 or more addresses.
- An upcharge to a Class C or Class B felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $30,000 if packages or mail are taken with the intent of stealing personal information or defrauding the addressee.
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