Q: Could my friends and i be charged with malicious destruction of property if no damage occurred?
At my work, we have 2 managers who are college students. We all are close with them and they tell us our experiences trespassing and drinking underage. Me and 4 other friends wanted to pull a prank on them so we smeared some pizza on their cars as a joke. We realized we may have put too much on and started to clean it up, but they came out while we were doing this and screamed and threatened us. We were scared so we left and grabbed more cleaning supplies and came back and apologized profusely. They screamed at us and we apologized profusely. We caused no damage to their cars and had no malicious intent. We also cleaned it up completely. They are taking it to the police now. Could we be charged despite the fact that no damage was caused and there was no ill intent? Would the case likely be dropped? I know this sounds stupid, but we really thought they were going to laugh at it and didn’t think they would get so angry as kids have done things like pushed them in the pool.
A: There are a few charges the police could pursue - tampering is one that doesn't necessarily require damage. The question is whether the police, and prosecutor, will find this a matter to pursue. Only time will tell, unfortunately.
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