Santiago Lavandera's Legal Cases (2)

Criminal defense

State v. Patino

N/A

OUTCOME: NOT GUILTY -TRAFFICKING IN HEROIN

Defendant was video taped providing bottle full of heroin to undercover detective posing as drug dealer. Defendant was alleged to have confessed to participating in the trafficking of the heroin in th ... e presence of DEA agents. The government produced taped recorded statements between my client and an individual who was working with police as a confidential informant (otherwise known as a CI or referred to in street lingo as a "rat") Client was facing a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison upon conviction. Our defense was centered around the legal defense of entrapment. In other words, our defense was to argue that my client did not have any predisposition to commit any crime. He only became involved in the incident due to repeated insistence of the Confidential Informant and the police. After a week-long trial in which several police officers and DEA agents testified, we obtained a verdict of NOT GUILTY!

Criminal defense

State v. Valdes

N/A

OUTCOME: Traffick Cocaine Motion to Suppress Case Dismissed

My Client was alleged to have participated in a drug deal for a substantial amount of Cocaine. With the use of a confidential informant, police followed my client's car and stopped him for running a s ... top sign. They then proceeded to search the car where the allegedly found a manila envelope containing nearly one kilogram (1 kilo) of cocaine. My client was offered a plea deal in exchange for his cooperation, and was also offered a plea deal where he would accept several years in prison. After carefully studying the case, and taking depositions, I filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in the car, because I believed that the police did not have a right to detain him in the first place, i.e. there was no traffice violation, and the alleged running of the stop sign was a "pretext" to search his car when they had no legal authority to do so. After hearing testimony from the police officer who performed the stop, and after listening to the answers to my questions, it became apparent that the police did not have a reason to stop my client's car. The judge ruled that there was a violation of my client's rights, and that the evidence must be suppress according to the law. As a result, my client's case was dismissed by the prosecution.

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