Tag: false statement

It isn’t often that you see a federal judge asking a federal prosecutor to file criminal charges against a sitting sheriff, but according to the following CNN article, that is precisely what is occurring in Arizona. Tough-talking Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio could soon be facing criminal charges himself. Federal Judge G. Murray Snow has asked […]

  In the federal case of the United States of America versus Napoleon Bustamante, Mr. Bustamante was convicted of illegally reentering the United States, making a false statement in a passport application, and making a false statement in an application for supplemental security income benefits. His convictions centered around the prosecutor’s accusation that Bustamante was […]

  In the federal case of the United States versus Michael McIntosh, Mr. McIntosh was charged with committing the crimes of bankruptcy fraud and money laundering because of his failure to disclose during his bankruptcy proceeding that he had received certain money and deposited some of that money into a bank account that he controlled through an unincorporated […]

          Imagine the following scenario:  You have been charged in federal court with one count of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.  After reviewing the prosecutor's evidence against you, you decide that it is in your best interest to plead guilty to the one count that you have been charged with.  Your lawyer then obtains a […]

The following article appeared in the New York Times earlier this week: In an age of advanced forensic science, the first step toward ending Kenneth Reed’s prolonged series of legal appeals should be simple and quick: a DNA test, for which he has offered to pay, on evidence from the 1991 rape of which he […]

The answer is yes, the police are allowed to lie to you to get you to confess.  The law in Florida is that the use of tricks or factual misstatements by the police do not by themselves make a confession involuntary.  For instance, in one Florida Supreme Court case called Burch versus State of Florida, […]

The following story appears in the Palm Beach Post newspaper.  Although it originates in South Florida, the story could happen anywhere. DNA TESTING ON TRIAL By Susan Spencer-Wendel Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 23, 2007 WEST PALM BEACH — Exonerations using DNA evidence have topped 200 cases now, corroding confidence in the American […]

FORT PIERCE — A jury deliberated for more than four hours Wednesday and will return today to mull the fate of two men accused of orchestrating a complex scheme that prosecutors say defrauded elderly investors out of millions of dollars. The jurors will meet at the federal courthouse at 9:30 a.m. to resume deliberations in […]

This is the problem with breath-testing machines in Florida DUI cases: a couple of numbers are spit out of a machine that very few people understand. Those numbers say that the person arrested was driving with a breath-alcohol level that was over the legal limit. Those numbers are, in turn, presented to a jury who […]

FORT PIERCE ˜ Leonard Bogdan was either the head of a complicated scheme to fleece investors out of millions or a poor manager who tried but couldn't revive a failing business venture. Those two very different versions of Bogdan were presented to jurors during opening statements Tuesday as his federal fraud trial began. Bogdan, 55, […]