OHIO LEGISLATIVE SERVICE COMMISSION
Office of Research Legislative Budget
www.lsc.ohio.gov and Drafting Office
H.B. 366* Bill Analysis
135th General Assembly
Click here for H.B. 366’s Fiscal Note
Version: As Reported by Senate Judiciary
Primary Sponsor: Rep. Ghanbari
Effective date:
Ashley F. Dean, Attorney
SUMMARY
Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement
(FORCE) Act
▪ Names the act the Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement (FORCE)
Act.
Organized Retail Theft Task force
▪ Establishes the Organized Retail Theft Task Force within the Organized Crime
Investigations Commission, to investigate retail theft activity, including cargo theft, and
any complaint received involving retail theft.
▪ Requires the Organized Crime Investigation Commission to appoint a director and
specified members of the Organized Retail Theft Task Force.
▪ Increases the fee for a sales tax vendor license from $25 to $50, and directs that additional
money to be used by the Organized Crime Investigations Commission exclusively to
support the operations of the Organized Retail Theft Task Force.
Organized Retail Theft Advisory Council
▪ Creates the Organized Retail Theft Advisory Council within the Attorney General’s office.
▪ Requires the Organized Retail Theft Advisory Council to advise the Organized Crime
Investigations Commission on organized retail theft and recommend actions for the
commission to detect, deter, prevent, and prosecute organized retail theft.
* This analysis was prepared before the report of the Senate Judiciary Committee appeared in the Senate
Journal. Note that the legislative history may be incomplete.
August 1, 2024
Office of Research and Drafting LSC Legislative Budget Office
Theft
▪ Specifies that an offender is guilty of grand theft, a fourth degree felony, if the offender
has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a felony theft offense within the previous three
years.
▪ Specifies that an offender is guilty of aggravated theft, a third degree felony, if the
offender two or more times has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a felony theft
offense within the previous three years.
▪ Specifies that an offender is guilty of theft from a person in a protected class, a fourth
degree felony, if the offender has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a felony theft
offense within the previous three years, and a third degree felony if the offender two or
more times has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a felony theft offense within the
previous three years.
Theft of mail
▪ Creates the crime of theft of mail, which is generally a fifth degree felony, but can escalate
as high as a first degree felony depending on the value of the mail stolen and other
specified circumstances.
Organized theft of retail property
▪ Creates the crime of organized theft of retail property, which prohibits a person from
doing any of the following:
 Knowingly committing theft of retail property with a retail value of $7,500 or more
from a retail establishment, manufacturer, distributor, or cargo transportation unit
for purposes of selling, delivering, or transferring that property to a retail property
fence or for purposes of selling, delivering, transferring, exchanging, or returning the
retail property for value;
 Receiving, purchasing, or possessing retail property with a retail value of $7,500 or
more if the person is employed by, or associated with an enterprise and the person
knows, believes, or has reasonable cause to believe that the property has been
obtained by theft;
 Knowingly acting as an agent of an enterprise to steal retail property with a retail value
of $7,500 or more from a retail establishment, manufacturer, distributor, or cargo
transportation unit as part of an organized plan to commit theft;
 Knowingly recruiting, coordinating, organizing, supervising, directing, managing, or
financing an enterprise to commit any of the acts described in the three preceding dot
points.
▪ Specifies that organized theft of retail property is generally a third degree felony, but can
escalate as high as a first degree felony depending on the value of the retail property
stolen and other specified circumstances.
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▪ Provides that when determining whether the retail value of retail property equals or
exceeds $1,000, the value of all retail property stolen from the retail establishment or
retail establishments by the same person or persons within any 6-month period will be
aggregated.
▪ Provides that a prosecution for a violation of organized theft of retail property does not
preclude a prosecution for theft, receiving stolen property, criminal simulation, or
engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity related to organized retail theft based on the
same conduct.
▪ Provides that if an offender is convicted of or pleads guilty to organized theft of retail
property and is also convicted of or pleads guilty to a violation of theft, receiving stolen
property, criminal simulation, or engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity related to
organized retail theft based on the same conduct, the two or more offenses will be
considered as allied offenses of similar import.
Counterfeiting
▪ Expands the offense of counterfeiting to also prohibit the following:
 Directly or indirectly using a scanning device to access, read, obtain, memorize, or
store, temporarily or permanently, information encoded on an access device without
the permission of the authorized user, the financial institution issuing the authorized
user’s access device, or a merchant.
 Directly or indirectly using an encoding machine to place information encoded on an
access device onto a different access device without permission from the authorized
user of the access device, the financial institution issuing the authorized user’s access
device, or a merchant.
Corrupt activity
▪ Provides that if a pattern of corrupt activity involves one or more incidents of organized
retail theft, the retail establishment, manufacturer, distributor, cargo transportation unit,
online marketplace, or group of those entities whose retail property was allegedly stolen
may contact the prosecuting attorney and request that the charge be aggregated with
other known thefts of retail property.
Securities Law
▪ Revises a provision of the Ohio Securities Law that allows a corporation to recover profit
derived from the sale of securities by a person who proposes to, or publicly discloses the
intention of, acquiring control of a corporation.
▪ Limits application of that remedy to situations in which the person selling the securities
engages in “manipulative practices,” by staging a hostile takeover bid to manipulate a
corporation or committing any other act that the Ohio Division of Securities defines as
manipulative.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement (FORCE) Act ................................. 4
Organized Retail Theft Task Force .................................................................................................. 4
Creation of Task Force ................................................................................................................. 4
Definitions – organized theft of retail property .......................................................................... 5
Organized Retail Theft Advisory Council......................................................................................... 5
Theft ................................................................................................................................................ 6
Theft of mail .................................................................................................................................... 7
Organized theft of retail property .................................................................................................. 8
Definitions – organized theft of retail property .......................................................................... 9
Counterfeiting ............................................................................................................................... 10
Definitions – counterfeiting ...................................................................................................... 10
Corrupt activity ............................................................................................................................. 11
Securities Law ............................................................................................................................... 11
DETAILED ANALYSIS
Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement
(FORCE) Act
The bill names the act the Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement
(FORCE) Act.1
Organized Retail Theft Task Force
Creation of Task Force
The bill establishes an Organized Retail Theft Task Force within the Organized Crime
Investigations Commission to investigate organized retail theft activity, including cargo theft. The
Task Force may investigate based on any complaint filed or information the Task Force receives
that gives reason to believe organized retail theft has occurred and continues to occur in one or
more counties. The Task Force director and members of the Task Force must be appointed in the
same manner as an organized crime task force established under existing law.2
Continuing law requires that, unless a statutory exception applies, any person engaged in
making retail sales subject to sales tax is required to have a vendor’s license. Application for a
vendor’s license must be made to the county auditor of each county in which the applicant
desires to engage in business, and current law requires each applicant pay a license fee of $25 to
the county treasury for each fixed place of business in the county that will be the situs of retail
sales. The bill increases this fee from $25 to $50, and specifies that the county auditor must
1 Section 3.
2 R.C. 177.02(B)(2) and (3).
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transmit $25 of each license fee to the State Treasurer for deposit into the State Treasury to the
credit of the Organized Crime Commission Fund. The bill directs that this money is to be used by
the Organized Crime Investigations Commission exclusively to support the operations of the
Organized Retail Theft Task Force.3
Definitions – organized theft of retail property
As used in the creation of the Task Force described above, the bill defines the following
term:4
▪ “Cargo theft” means the unlawful taking of any cargo including goods, chattels, money,
or baggage that constitutes a commercial shipment of freight moving in any of the
following:
 Commerce;
 A pipeline system;
 A railroad car;
 A motor truck or other vehicle;
 A tank or storage facility;
 A station house, platform, or depot;
 A vessel or wharf;
 An aircraft, airport terminal, airport, aircraft terminal, or air navigation facility;
 An intermodal container, intermodal chassis, trailer, container freight station,
warehouse, freight distribution facility, or freight consolidation facility.
Organized Retail Theft Advisory Council
The bill creates the Organized Retail Theft Advisory Council within the office of the
Attorney General, to consist of the following members:5
▪ The Attorney General or the Attorney General’s designee;
▪ An employee of the office of the Attorney General appointed by the Attorney General;
▪ The president or chief executive officer of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, or the
president’s or chief executive officer’s designee;
▪ Two loss prevention representatives from retail businesses with more than 250
employees, two loss prevention representatives from retail businesses with less than 250
employees;
3 R.C. 177.011(A)(2) and (D), 177.02(D)(4), and 5739.17.
4 R.C. 177.02(A)(1).
5 R.C. 177.04(A).
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▪ A member of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, or a member of the Ohio
Prosecuting Attorneys Association’s designee;
▪ A member of the Ohio Grocers Association, or a member of the Ohio Grocers
Association’s designee.
The Attorney General must appoint the loss prevention representatives to the Advisory
Council after consulting with statewide trade and professional organizations that represent the
interests of retail businesses and loss prevention, and the organizations are allowed to nominate
persons to be considered for appointment as council members.6
The Advisory Council must advise the Organized Crime Investigations Commission on
organized retail theft and recommend actions for the Commission to detect, deter, prevent, and
prosecute organized retail theft, and must meet at least quarterly. The Attorney General or the
Attorney General’s designee is the chairperson of the Advisory Council. The employee of the
office of the Attorney General appointed to the Advisory Council must serve as liaison to the
Organized Retail Theft Task Force. Members of the Advisory Council are not compensated, but
will be reimbursed for actual and necessary expenses incurred in performing their official duties.
The Organized Crime Investigations Commission may provide the Advisory Council with technical
and clerical employees as necessary to accomplish its responsibilities mentioned under the bill. 7
In addition to the duties described above, the bill allows the Advisory Council to engage
in the following activities:8
1. Compiling and disseminating to retail businesses and law enforcement agencies
innovative methods of detecting, deterring, preventing, and prosecuting organized retail
theft;
2. Conducting training conferences to educate retail businesses and law enforcement
agencies regarding current and emerging crime trends;
3. Consulting with national, state, and local law enforcement agencies and retail
associations concerning organized retail theft;
4. Educating the public on the problems associated with organized retail theft.
Theft
The bill modifies the penalties for theft as follows:
▪ For grand theft, a fourth degree felony if the offender has been convicted of or pleaded
guilty to a felony theft offense within the previous three years.9
6 R.C. 177.04(B).
7 R.C. 177.04(C) and (E).
8 R.C. 177.04(D).
9 R.C. 2913.02(B)(2).
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▪ For aggravated theft, a third degree felony if the offender two or more times has been
convicted of or pleaded guilty to a felony theft offense within the previous three years.10
▪ For theft from a person in a protected class, a fourth degree felony if the offender has
been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a felony theft offense within the previous three
years, and a third degree felony if the offender two or more times has been convicted of
or pleaded guilty to a felony theft offense within the previous three years.11
Theft of mail
The bill creates the offense of theft of mail. The bill prohibits a person, with purpose to
deprive the owner of mail, from knowingly obtaining or exerting control over the mail in a