Merchant sales $1700 of roofing material to individual. Check bounces. Individual brings back $1300 of the materials to merchant. Merchant takes roofing material back, and gives indvidual a check for $1300. Merchant tells individual to get other $400 and pay back total $1700 to merchant.

As you can guess individual takes $1300 and never pays anything. Is this a theft by check case?

"partial restituion does not preclude the presumption of the requisite intent under this section" 31.06(e) presumption of theft penal code

He would still need to send the demand letter, etc.
hopes this helps

Let me get this straight.

A party purchases $1,700 in materials, pays by check.

Check Bounces! Merchant gets zippo, $000.00

Party brings back $1,300 in materials. MERCHANT GIVES PARTY A CHECK FOR THAT AMOUNT? and asks party to bring in $400 more?

Do I have this right?

Why would merchant GIVE PARTY A CHECK FOR ANY AMOUNT?

Sounds like party could have cashed the $1,300 check, paid merchant $400 to make him happy, and then pocketed the remaining cool $900 as a profit!

I have to admit it seems utterly strange that the victim of a theft would pay someone to again obtain control of the property initially stolen from him. I assume the merchant was unaware of the original theft at the time he "refunded" part of the original purchase price.

My conclusion is that you have two thefts here. One of roofing materials and then a second of $1300 of money (although you have to be careful how you allege the identity of the property stolen in the second theft). Orr

The merchant was aware of the $1700 check bouncing. He did contact the check writer and demanded payment of $1700. Check writer brought back $1300 of the material & promised he would get the other $400 to them in cach. The merchant said we will take the materials back but here is a $1300 check for the material & bring all the $1700 back at one time. Crazy I know.

The check writer has been charged with a class A misdemeanor theft for the roofing materials he took from the job that belonged to the home owner.

Not sure how I would charge the check writer with theft of the $1300 that was given to him by the merchant. Can I charge him with the original $1700 hot check under these circumstances?

My new conclusion is that there was no theft. The $1300 was a gift (as there was no new detriment or benefit involved in either returning the stolen goods or repeating the earlier promise to make the merchant whole by paying $400 for the items not returned). Furthermore, the original transaction was converted into a credit rather than cash transaction; so the $1700 check essentially became more like a promissory note. I guess you could still argue the appropriation was without effective consent, but it sounds a lot more like "keep the stuff you want and pay me when you can," i.e., a breach of contract.