Grand Larceny in Nevada (NRS 205.220)

Under NRS 205.220, grand larceny is intentionally stealing, taking, or carrying away another person’s property valued at $1,200 or more. The statute sweeps wider than pocketed merchandise: it covers property taken from hotel rooms by guests, crops and fixtures severed from land, and — with no minimum value at all — unauthorized withdrawals from someone else’s ATM or bank card and theft of livestock. Two big categories are deliberately excluded because they have their own statutes: firearms and motor vehicles are charged separately regardless of value.

The mental element matters as much as the math: the State must prove an intent to steal — to permanently deprive the owner. Borrowing gone wrong, disputed ownership, and genuine misunderstanding are not larceny, however awkward the facts look.

Las Vegas gives this statute its own flavor. Hotel-room cases — a guest accused of leaving with property, a visitor accused of taking from a host’s suite — are charged under the same tiers, and resort security documents them aggressively before police ever arrive. High-value personal property is everywhere here: watches, chips converted to cash, designer goods whose claimed retail value conveniently lands a case in a higher tier. The tourist-economy setting doesn’t change the statute, but it changes the evidence — and surveillance-rich cases cut both ways, for exactly the same reasons they do in robbery cases.

Nevada nearly doubled its felony-theft threshold in the 2019 justice reforms (AB 236, effective 2020), raising it from $650 to $1,200 and restructuring the penalties into the four tiers below. Plenty of pages online — including law firm pages last ‘updated’ well after 2020 — still publish the old numbers. If the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony in your case is a few hundred dollars of disputed value, make sure everyone involved is reading the current statute. It matters more than it ever has: the same conduct that was a felony in 2019 may be a misdemeanor today.

Here is the part no charging document explains: the tier is only as solid as the State’s valuation evidence. Prosecutors reach for the highest defensible number — retail price, replacement cost, an owner’s estimate. The defense tests it: what was the property actually worth in its condition, at that time? Used goods are not worth their receipts. Damaged goods are not worth their listings. An owner’s sentimental estimate is not an appraisal.

Aggregation is the second battlefield. Whether multiple takings can be added together to cross $1,200 — or to jump tiers — depends on how connected the incidents really were, and prosecutors aggregate aggressively. Splitting a stacked count back into its parts can move a case from category B exposure to category D, or from felony to misdemeanor entirely.

A concrete example of why this matters: a laptop bought for $2,000 three years ago, cracked screen, obsolete processor. The charging document says $2,000 — category D felony. Its actual fair value today might be $600 — petit larceny, a misdemeanor. Same laptop, same taking, two different futures, decided entirely by which valuation survives scrutiny. Valuation and aggregation fights are unglamorous and technical — and they are routinely worth more than every other issue in a larceny case combined.

Facts move cases across the theft silo fast. Use or threaten force at any point — taking, keeping, or escaping with property — and larceny becomes robbery, a 2-to-15-year category B felony with no value threshold at all. Enter a building or home with intent to steal and burglary attaches, regardless of what was taken. Even a routine retail case can escalate: shoplifting over $1,200 is charged as grand larceny, and a shove past a security guard on the way out can convert it to robbery. Which statute frames your case is itself an argument — and often the most valuable one available.

Petit larceny convictions can be sealed one year after the case closes. Grand larceny at any tier is a felony with a five-year sealing wait — one more reason the misdemeanor line is worth fighting for. Dismissals seal immediately. And because restitution is mandatory, completing payment promptly matters twice: it closes the case terms and starts the sealing clock.

Until sealing, a theft conviction is a background-check problem with its own gravity in this town: employers screen for theft offenses specifically, and casino and gaming-adjacent jobs treat them as near-disqualifying. The sealing plan should be part of the defense plan from day one — not an afterthought years later.

Larceny cases are won with unglamorous work — valuation evidence, aggregation math, ownership paper trails — done early and pressed hard. Our defense team, including former prosecutors, knows exactly how Clark County builds and prices these cases, and how to move them down the tier table or off it entirely. We defend the whole theft silo, from shoplifting citations to six-figure category B indictments, in English and Spanish, with a felony defense trial team behind every negotiation. The consultation is free — bring the charging documents and we’ll tell you where the value fight is.