BRADFORD, J.
Appellant/Defendant Gloria Benefield appeals following her conviction for Class C felony Forgery. [Footnote omitted.]
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As previously mentioned, Final Instruction 6 provided that “‘Defraud’ means to make a misrepresentation of an existing material fact, knowing it to be false, or making it recklessly without regard to whether it is true or false.” . . . Benefield contends on appeal that this definition of “defraud” given to the jury impermissibly lowers the mens rea for forgery, which requires, as charged here, an intent to defraud.
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We conclude that the instruction in question impermissibly instructed the jury that it could convict upon merely a “reckless” state of mind, when the forgery statute requires that the making, uttering, or possession of the written instrument in question be done with the “intent to defraud[.]” Ind. Code  35-43-5-2(b). In other words, a mere reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the instrument is not enough; we conclude that knowledge that the information in the instrument is false is required.
This conclusion is consistent with Indiana precedent on the question. As the Indiana Supreme Court has concluded, “An intent to defraud involves an intent to deceive and thereby work a reliance and injury.” Wendling v. State, 465 N.E.2d 169, 170 (Ind. 1984) (emphasis added). In our view, a mere reckless disregard for the truth of information in a written instrument is inconsistent with an intent to deceive; one simply does not have the intent to deceive if one does not believe the information is false. To the extent that Final Instruction 6 suggests that a person making a representation with reckless disregard for its truth may have the intent to deceive, we conclude that it is not a proper statement of the law.
FRIEDLANDER, J., and MAY, J., concur.