§ 140A.061.Deliberate Noncompliance

A criminal offense inside a civil code, and it exists because the investigative power would otherwise be easy to defeat.

Subsection (a): a person commits an offense if, with intent to avoid, evade, or prevent compliance with a demand, they knowingly remove from any place, conceal, withhold, destroy, mutilate, alter, or by any other means falsify any documentary material, or otherwise provide inaccurate information.

Two mental states are required, and both must be proved. The act must be knowing, and it must be done with intent to defeat the demand. Losing documents carelessly is not this offense; a routine retention policy that happens to reach them is not either.

The verbs cover every method. "Withhold" reaches not producing what one has, and "otherwise provide inaccurate information" reaches false interrogatory answers — so the offense is not confined to physical documents.

Subsection (b) sets the punishment: a fine of not more than $5,000, confinement in county jail for not more than one year, or both.

Those limits match a Class A misdemeanor, which is the level the companion racketeering chapter names directly for the same conduct.

The offense fills a real gap. Enforcement of a demand produces a court order, and contempt reaches disobedience of that order — but a person who destroys the documents before the order issues has made the order useless. This reaches the destruction itself.

It also gives the sworn certificates their weight: an incomplete production certified as complete is inaccurate information provided to defeat a demand.