Baton Rouge, LA
Federal crime Lawyer at Baton Rouge, LA
Practice Areas: Federal Crime, Criminal Defense ... +3 more
OUTCOME: Diversion. Case dismissed.
Client is charged with felony carnal knowledge. He's a college aged student. His victim is in high school. After presenting the prosecutor with mitigating evidence of our client's background and com ... munity involvement, he was offered pre-trial diversion and will not become a convicted sex offender. Nor will he need to register as a sex offender.
OUTCOME: Evidence suppressed; case dismissed.
Local police detain our client during a traffic stop for an obscured license plate. During the course of the stop, the passenger made some movements causing the police to search the interior of the ca ... r. Drugs are found in the center console and $15,000 found in a bag on the driver's side of the car. Our client was facing 5-40 years in federal prison. We filed a motion to suppress alleging that the duration of the traffic stop was too long and the prolonged detention, which was not based upon observable criminal activity, violated our client's right against unreasonable seizures. On cross examination we established how neither our client nor his passenger were objectively threatening and establish that the citation was written but not issued prior to the vehicle search. The Court agreed and suppressed the evidence. Afterwards, the Government dismissed the case.
OUTCOME: Federal Indictment Not Pursued
We represented a client investigated by the FBI and the Healthcare fraud task force concerning allegations of fraudulent billing for unnecessary services. We had multiple meetings with agents in which ... we were able to give an honest accounting of our clients actions and showed that the paperwork he provided accurately described his activities and that an error was due to an independent biller who got paid a percentage of monies received from Medicare. We also established that our client never paid any kick backs etc for the services he provided. After three stressful years, the Government decided they did not have a case to pursue. This was great news for an innocent client whose case was ready to go to the grand jury.
OUTCOME: Not Guilty
Homicide Defense. Our client was one of three people arrested in a double homicide in one of the LSU dormitories. The case hinged upon one of the co-defendant's becoming a flip witness. This witness ... ' version of events changed with each interview and at trial. He was cross examined on those inconsistencies and extensively on how his testimony was not supported by the physical and forensic evidence. We were able to establish other potential suspects committing similar crimes in the area and having similar physical features as our client. Lastly, we were able to show that our client was working that evening and, if the flip witness' story was to be believed, that it would have been impossible for our client to travel from his work to the witness' home and back to the LSU dorm in time to do the murder.
OUTCOME: Evidence Suppressed; Case dismissed
Our client was a passenger in a car pulled over for a very minor traffic infraction. All of the occupants were Hispanic and spoke little English. The police delayed in running routine back ground che ... cks and deployed a k-9 around the car to check for drugs. When no alert was made another officer trained in "combat Spanish" was called to the scene and got "consent" to search from the driver. Where upon, 2 searches were done discovering stolen electronics in the trunk. We argued we had standing to challenge the driver's consent on the theory that our client's rights were violated due to the prolonged detention. Even though the driver cut a plea deal with the Government we cross examined him at a suppression hearing and elicited testimony that when he was in Cuba he was jailed for failing to obey the commands of a Cuban cop in an effort to show his "consent" was not voluntary. Also, by using scripted Spanish questions, we established the "bi-lingual" detective was not fluent at all and couldn't have answered any questions regarding the consent to search. The Court, in suppressing the evidence, ruled that the police failed to pursue their investigation in a reasonable time and intentionally prolonging the detention making the consent to search invalid.
OUTCOME: Not Guilty
Our client was charged with a DWI Offense. We believe we won the case in voir dire by eliminating people who have been injured in car wrecks or know some one injured by a drunken driver and for those ... who implied guilt due to our client having multiple convictions. Additionally, we selected young adults who could more easily relate to drinking and driving along with pot-bellied males assuming that they drank more than the average person. The case was a routine traffic stop within a small town that purported to have our client so impaired that he was stumbling out of his car. Naturally, according to the police officer, he bombed the field sobriety tests. There was no video and our client refused the breathalyzer. He previously pled to three other dui offenses. We put on a methodical defense. First we locked in the technicalities of the field sobriety examinations and were able to have the officer committed that proper testing is a 15 minute process. We impeached him with his dispatch records to show only a 5 minute gap between pulling our client over and radioing his arrest. Next, we established the officer's bias. Years early, our client dated this officer's sister (small town). After the relationship ended the officer would write our client for a speeding ticket. This angered our client who would one day confront the officer publicly at a bar for his refusal to cut any slack. Next, we presented every person who was with our client that day and established that he spent most of the day at a nursing home with his mother; briefly attended the town's high school football game and was en-route to a girlfriend's home when pulled over and arrested. In doing so, we conceded drinking a small amount of alcohol throughout the day but not enough to be impaired. During closing arguments we turned the prosecutions proof of prior convictions against them. Our client has an impressive, and frankly beautiful, penmanship. We compared his signatures on his guilty plea forms to that of his dwi paperwork which was signed when he was too drunk to stand and argued that a drunk could not sign his name so amazingly. At this point in the argument, I was close to the jury rail. One of the jurors grabbed the paperwork from my hands, examined it and past it to his co-jurors. Our client was acquitted. So much for the Judge's advice that we would never win a DWI 4th.
OUTCOME: Not Guilty
We represented a client charged with attempted manslaughter of his girlfriend in Convent, Louisiana. At the time of his arrest, he was on parole for manslaughter. There is no dispute that our client ... got into a fight with his girlfriend and hit her, knocking her out. We established through cross examining the victim that his "blow" came in response to her biting him when he attempted to bear hug her in an effort to prevent her from striking him. We also elicited testimony that he sought medical attention for her afterwards. Though technically, not self defense, these facts were certainly mitigating. We argued that the proper charge was second degree battery which was not responsive to attempted manslaughter. The jury agreed.
OUTCOME: Not Guilty
Our client was charged with the second degree battery of his girlfriend and criminal damage to property. He was brought to trial in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. It was undisputed that they got into an a ... ltercation but who started it and whether our client injured the "victim" were disputed. This came was won on the cross examination of the victim whose testimony at trial was highly embellished from her statement to the police. Her trial testimony would have justified an attempted murder charge if accurate. Our client testified in his own defense. The victim's fabrication was too much for the jury and they acquitted our client.
OUTCOME: Not Gulty
We represented a promising high school football player in Donaldsonville, Louisiana charged with the forcible rape of a class mate. Making matters troubling was having an African-American client and a ... Caucasian "victim." The two were considered friends and the rape was alleged to have occurred at the girl's home after school. Our client was offered a plea of credit for time served to sexual battery. He turned it down and opted for trial. At the outset, this was a classic "he said- she said" case. Our defense was consent with motive to lie. Our belief was that the victim needed cover when her boyfriend learned that she had sex with a black male. Our defense hinged upon the testimony of the first reporter. This person was the victim's friend who testified that the victim advised her of having sex with our client and talked favorably about him. No mention of rape. Her testimony must have broken the tie and our client was acquitted. note: although our client was old enough to be prosecuted as an adult, due to the nature of the accusation coupled with his status of student at the time of the arrest, we've opted not to provide his name.
OUTCOME: Not Guilty
We came to represent our client after he successfully got his guilty plea over turned for an excessive sentence on his pro0se appeal. Our client was charged with stealing and attempting to sell a stol ... en back hoe. Our defense simply sought to place the jurors into our client's shoes. Our client purchased and was attempting to sell this back hoe to others for a profit. In doing so, he had a friend of his at a pawnshop run the equipment's VIN number. That checked cleared. We also elicited testimony from one of the buyers who had the same thing done but he used the District Attorney's own chief investigator to run the VIN. Apparently, when the equipment was stolen, a 5 was mistaken for an S allowing for an incorrect VIN to be entered into the police data base. We argued that it was impossible for our client to know the equipment was stolen due to this error and no one should be imprisoned for such an honest mistake. The jury agreed.
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