COUNTERFEIT CONCERT TICKETS FALL WITHIN THE AMBIT OF THE STATUTE PROHIBITING POSSESSION OF A FORGED INSTRUMENT (CT APP).

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Fahey, determined that counterfeit concert tickets fall within the ambit of the statute prohibiting possession of a forged instrument:

Defendant’s argument, a jurisdictional challenge to the indictments against him, amounts to the claim that the otherwise valid statement of the elements of the crime in each count is negated by the specific allegation in the “to wit” phrase that the forged instrument purported to be an event ticket. He insists, in effect, that counterfeit event tickets could never fall within the ambit of the second-degree forgery statute. Defendant’s rationale is that event tickets, the instruments that defendant’s counterfeit documents purported to be, are merely revocable licenses and do not “affect a legal right, interest, obligation or status.” …

Defendant’s premise that event tickets are revocable licenses is true. The case law saying as much is venerable. The purchase of an event admission ticket gives the holder “a revocable license . . . to enter the building in which [the event is held], and to attend the performance” … . An event ticket, in other words, is a permission slip, subject to retraction.

It does not follow, however, that an event ticket does not affect a legal right, i.e., “right created or recognized by law” … , or status, i.e., “legal condition, whether personal or proprietary” … . Indeed, the same decisions on which defendant relies to demonstrate the revocable nature of event tickets also describe the legal rights, albeit limited, that a ticket evidences or otherwise affects. An event ticket, the Court wrote, “is a license, issued by the proprietor . . . as convenient evidence of the right of the holder to admission”… . The Legislature has similarly defined a ticket, in the context of entertainment and the arts generally, as “any evidence of the right of entry to any place of entertainment”… . People v Watts, 2018 NY Slip Op 07926, CtApp 11-20-18

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