NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL STATUE 14-398

§ 14-398. Theft or destruction of property of public

libraries, museums, etc.

Any person who shall steal or unlawfully take or detain,

or willfully or maliciously or wantonly write upon, cut, tear,

deface, disfigure, soil, obliterate, break or destroy, or who

shall sell or buy or receive, knowing the same to have been

stolen, any book, document, newspaper, periodical, map, chart,

picture, portrait, engraving, statue, coin, medal, apparatus,

specimen, or other work of literature or object of art or

curiosity deposited in a public library, gallery, museum,

collection, fair or exhibition, or in any department or office of

State or local government, or in a library, gallery, museum,

collection, or exhibition, belonging to any incorporated college

or university, or any incorporated institution devoted to

educational, scientific, literary, artistic, historical or

charitable purposes, shall, if the value of the property stolen,

detained, sold, bought or received knowing same to have been

stolen, or if the damage done by writing upon, cutting, tearing,

defacing, disfiguring, soiling, obliterating, breaking or

destroying any such property, shall not exceed fifty dollars

($50.00), be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. If the value of

the property stolen, detained, sold or received knowing same to

have been stolen, or the amount of damage done in any of the ways

or manners hereinabove set out, shall exceed the sum of fifty

dollars ($50.00), the person committing same shall be punished as

a Class H felon. (1935, c. 300; 1943, c. 543; 1979, c. 760, s. 5;

1979, 2nd Sess., c. 1316, s. 47; 1981, c. 63, s. 1, c. 179, s.

14; 1993, c. 539, s. 265; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)