## Facts

- Giles was a teller at a Federal Reserve member bank.
- Giles developed a cash shortage and sought to conceal it.
- He withheld deposit slips that should have been forwarded for posting to customers’ individual ledger accounts.
- Because the bank’s bookkeeping system depended on those slips, the bookkeeping department posted ledger balances that understated the bank’s actual liability to certain depositors (including the San Antonio Public Service Company and National Life & Accident Insurance Company).
- Giles was indicted under R.S. § 5209 (as amended) for knowingly and fraudulently making false entries in a bank book (the individual ledger), with intent to defraud or deceive.

## Issues

1. Whether a bank employee “makes” a false entry under R.S. § 5209 only by personally writing the entry or expressly directing another to do so.
2. Whether deliberately withholding deposit slips, knowing it will cause innocent bookkeeping employees to post understated ledger balances, constitutes “making” a false entry under the statute.
3. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to direct a verdict of not guilty on the ground that Giles did not physically write the ledger entries.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and affirmed the conviction.
- The Court held that R.S. § 5209 reaches deliberate conduct by a bank employee that necessarily causes a false entry to be made through the bank’s ordinary bookkeeping process.
- A defendant may “make” a false entry even if the entry is physically recorded by an innocent intermediary, so long as the defendant intentionally sets in motion the process that produces the false record.
- The trial court properly denied a directed verdict of acquittal.

## Legal Principles

- Strict construction of criminal statutes does not require assigning statutory terms their narrowest meaning when that would defeat the evident legislative purpose.
- Under R.S. § 5209, an employee “makes” a false entry not only by personally recording it or explicitly ordering it, but also by intentional acts designed to produce a false entry through routine operations.
- A false-entry offense is satisfied where the defendant knowingly causes bank books to reflect an inaccurate statement of the bank’s condition or liabilities, with the requisite intent to injure, defraud, or deceive.

## Conclusion

A bank teller who intentionally withholds deposit slips to trigger understated ledger postings by innocent bookkeeping staff “makes” a false entry within the federal false-entry statute, and the resulting convictions were properly sustained.


United States v. Giles, 300 U.S. 41 (1937)