AI-assisted research summary: This section makes several willful consumer-credit related violations misdemeanors and sets fines and possible jail time.
§3553. Criminal penalties A.(1) An extender of credit and any individual directly involved in the extension of credit who willfully makes charges in excess of those permitted by the provisions of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction may be sentenced to pay a fine not less than two hundred fifty dollars or more than five thousand dollars, or to imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both. (2) A person, other than a supervised financial organization, who willfully engages in the business of making or taking assignments of consumer loans without a license in violation of the provisions of this Chapter applying to authority to make consumer loans is guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction may be sentenced to pay a fine not less than two hundred fifty dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, or to imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both. (3) A person who willfully engages in the business of making consumer credit transactions, or of taking assignments of rights against consumers arising therefrom and undertakes direct collection of payments or enforcement of these rights, without complying with the provisions of this Chapter concerning notification (R.S. 9:3563-3565), is guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction may be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or to imprisonment not exceeding four months, or both. (4) A person who willfully engages in the business of consumer loan brokering without complying with the provisions of this Chapter concerning registration (R.S. 9:3572.1 et seq.) is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction may be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or to imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both. B. When the extender of credit is a corporation, its officers, directors or stockholders who are not personally involved in violations of this Chapter shall not be subject to the criminal penalties of this Section. Added by Acts 1972, No. 454, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1973; Acts 1992, No. 147, §1; Acts 1995, No. 1184, §2.