1. Every competent person who commits a criminal act is responsible therefor when acting of his own free will and not under coercion, and cannot justify his criminal conduct on the ground that he was acting as agent of a corporation and not in his own behalf. The prosecution here is for the offense of drawing and uttering a worthless check in violation of Code 13-9933, the gravamen of which is the intent to defraud. This element of the offense may be fully as present in the mind of an agent or officer of a corporation acting for such corporation as it would be were such person acting for himself.

2. Intent to defraud being the gravamen of the crime, the issuance of a worthless check in payment of a pre-existing debt cannot result in defrauding the payee of any right, property, money or other thing of value. Accordingly, where a check is issued in payment of wages or salary already earned, this essential element of the offense is not present.

C. L. Thompson Sr. was tried and convicted in the City Court of Thomasville on an accusation in two counts, charging him with uttering checks for $23.72 and $30.69 respectively, knowing that the maker or drawer did not have sufficient funds or credit with said bank for the payment thereof, with intent to defraud. It appeared on the trial of the case that the checks were signed, "Thompson Foundry and Machine Company, Payroll Account, by C. L. Thompson Sr., Vice President and Secretary and Treasurer." One of the checks was dated March 25, 1950, payable to the order of Pauling Hamilton, and the other dated April 14, 1950, payable to the same person; that each of the checks was issued at the conclusion of a week during which the payee had rendered services as an employee of Thompson Foundry and Machine Company, and was in payment of the services so rendered; that the checks were worthless, there not being in the bank funds sufficient to cover them; and that they had not subsequently been made good by the defendant or his company.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty. The defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which was subsequently amended by adding two special grounds, and the overruling of the motion is assigned as error.

1. The special grounds of the amended motion for a new trial are concerned with the admission of the checks into evidence, and the statement of the court in the presence of the jury, at the time he overruled the objection to their admission, that a corporation must necessarily act through its agents and officers, that such officers would know more than individuals as to what funds the corporation had in the bank, and that it would be a legal presumption that the officers would know what the bank had belonging to the corporation; the objections to the latter ruling being that it was contrary to law, misleading to the jury, and prejudicial to the rights of the defendant. These objections are not well taken. The issue here is whether the defendant, who held three of the offices of the corporation which bore his name, including that of treasurer, issued the checks with intent to defraud, knowing that there were no funds in the drawee bank sufficient to cover them. Granting that C. L. Thompson and Thompson Foundry Company are separate entities, and that in drawing the check the defendant acted as the agent of his corporate principal, "every person, agent or principal, is responsible for his criminal conduct, and cannot plead the authority or commands of a superior as a justification, unless the act be committed under coercion." Hately v. State, 15 Ga. 346 (3). "An officer or an agent of a corporation cannot shield himself from criminal responsibility for his own acts on the ground that they were done in his official capacity as an officer or agent of such corporation." Bailey v. State, 84 Ga. App. 839 (67 S. E. 2d, 830). The checks were properly admitted in evidence, and the statement of the trial court was not error for any reason assigned.

2. Counsel for the plaintiff in error contends in regard to the general grounds that the evidence is insufficient to form the basis of conviction, since it appears than the prosecutrix was an employee of the firm and had worked for it for stated intervals of time on credit; that her services for the intervals in question had been fully rendered before the checks were issued; and that the checks therefore represented "items of account rather than checks given for a cash consideration."

It does not appear that the case of Owens v. State, 62 Ga. App. 521 (8 S. E. 2d, 662), relied upon by the defendant in error, is applicable, since the worthless check in that case was given partly in payment of the debt of two other persons who had already made available to the defendant the cash with which to pay their indebtedness, and had constituted him their agent to deliver such funds to the prosecutor.

The evidence failed to show an intent to defraud, for which reason the conviction of the defendant must be

Reversed. MacIntyre, P. J., and Gardner, J., concur.