18 U.S. Code § 333 - Mutilation of national bank obligations
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 700; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(B), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2146.)
edit: adding more info to ease your minds a bit…
From a long running campaign about stamping political messages on Federal Reserve Notes.
well I have yet to serve 6 months for any pennies I put on the rail road track as a kid, or the pennies we DESTROYED in Science Class in highschool where we notched the edge of the penny then put it in an acid solution that ate the internals and left the copper shell.
Intent is apparently the key issue here.
edit: adding more info to ease your minds a bit…
From a long running campaign about stamping political messages on Federal Reserve Notes.
https://www.stampstampede.org/faq/yes-its-legal/
https://www.stampstampede.org/uploads/alan-levine-nov-6-opinion.pdf
well I have yet to serve 6 months for any pennies I put on the rail road track as a kid, or the pennies we DESTROYED in Science Class in highschool where we notched the edge of the penny then put it in an acid solution that ate the internals and left the copper shell.
This law is for notes/bills/drafts/et cetera, not coins.
Here is the law for coins.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/485