Joseph Shemaria

I had a great job, was making great money and had planned to go to law school. Suddenly my world came crashing down in July, 2013 when federal law enforcement agents arrested me at 6 AM on a Federal Indictment charging me and 10 others with: Conspiracy; Bribery of a Public Official; False Statements ...and "Aggravated Identity Theft". Things went from bad to worse. The magistrate judge ordered me to be detained without bail and I sat in jail for nine months awaiting trial as it was a complex case and new co-conspirators were added as time went by.. I hired Joseph to represent me in place of another private attorney who had been court-appointed. Most all of the 11 codefendants indicted along with me remained detained and most all had court-appointed attorneys. I was getting really mad at Joseph because most all the other attorneys visited their clients almost every week and Joseph was too busy for a lot of "handholding" but he always assured me-- and I always believed him-- when he said he was working on my case and he kept telling me the only way to win the case is to do a lot of legal research, investigate the facts of the case thoroughly and, most importantly, knowing exactly what moves to and when to make them, both with the Assistant United States Attorney and with the Court. I have been told by Joseph, many of my codefendants and other attorneys as well, that I was looking at 5 to 6 years in prison with an additional consecutive two years for aggravated identity theft. I was very depressed and life seemed a bit hopeless at times. But J kept telling me he was working on my case and I cannot begin to tell you how awesomely shocked and surprised I was when he told me I was in a plead guilty to a single count and receive "PROBATION, WITH TIME SERVED as my total sentence!! When I told this to my numerous codefendants in jail, none of them believe me and, to be frank, I couldn't believe it myself. However, I put all of my trust in him and pled guilty to a single count and I RECEIVED PROBATION, WITH TIME SERVED as my total sentence, just as Joseph had told me I would! Largely because of Joseph's hard work, vast experience with federal criminal litigation and "out-of-the-box" creative lawyering, not only was I saved from a long prison sentence, Joseph set the stage for all of my similarly situated codefendants to then be able to receive the same sentences I did. I never thought I would escape going to prison. Nor did I ever think my life would ever return to normal. I must say that thanks to Joseph and his hard-working office staff, I was spared from spending years in prison away from my family. Now, my life has largely returned to normal and I cannot thank Mr. Shemaria enough for what he did for me, my family and all of my codefendants who followed in my footsteps and received the same or very similar sentences. I highly recommend Mr. Shemaria for anybody who sees their life falling apart before their very eyes for violating the federal statute. Mr. Shemaria is a trailblazer and his tactics and strategy and handling my case, as well as his optimism about the outcome of my case, distinguished him from all of my codefendants' attorneys. He was the visionary; he got the results and all the others followed. I can't thank him enough. . . . M.N.C

REALLY? Did this really happen? Oh my God, YES! It really did happen and it happened to ME! It seemed I had everything going for me at the time. I had graduated from a very prestigious private (and expensive) undergraduate school and continued right on into law school. I had also just recently ma...rried and had a child when I was arrested by the FBI and DEA for trafficking in controlled substances in July, 2011. That's when the nightmare started. I learned that I had been indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy and violating 21 USC 841--Trafficking in controlled substances. Was this the worst nightmare possible? YOU BET IT WAS. I saw my whole future go down the toilet. I had tons of college loans to pay back and a young wife and baby to support and now I was headed for the big house, according to my lawyer. I worked day and night in the law library trying to be my own lawyer and to see if my lawyer was doing the right thing. But it turns out federal court has much different procedures than state court in California and I went from July, 2011 until February, 2013 with the same private attorney who was supposed to be an expert in federal criminal law and was a part of the "panel" of private attorneys that received appointments by the federal court. I went 19 months without a good nights sleep. Just before falling asleep, I cannot help thinking about what it might be like in prison. The first thing I thought about in the morning was I did not get a good night's sleep and my nightmare was still with me. I was Internet savvy and I went through every federal criminal defense lawyer practicing in California. Being a recent law school graduate myself, I naturally looked at what law school they went to, when they graduated and how soon they were admitted to the California Bar. I looked at how many years of experience they had practicing "FEDERAL" criminal defense law. In short, I looked at everything that I could and I visited the offices of the top six or seven federal criminal defense attorneys in Southern California. While I was not that impressed with Joe Shemaria's website, federalcrimeslawyers.com because it did not have the "testimonials" from former clients like some of the other top federal defense lawyers, what I read in his website immediately struck me like a bolt of lightning. He had been an Editor on the prestigious UCLA Law Review and published an article in the UCLA Law Review. In addition, he graduated at the top of his class, earning him the prestigious award "Order of the Coif." On top of that, he commenced trying federal criminal cases in 1970 and was still going strong when I met him in February, 2013. As soon as I switched attorneys, things immediately started happening on my case! Immediately, Mr. Shemaria went to work filing motions in the United States District Court. The motions were so powerful that I thought I was going to go to the bathroom in my pants when the federal prosecutor complimented Mr. Shemaria in open court in front of the federal judge and all of the people in the courtroom who, like me, were amazed by what was said. The federal prosecutor thanked Mr. Shemaria for digging into the discovery and finding a tiny, but very, very critical to my case, error that the prosecutor had overlooked. From that day on, once again-- after 19 months of never getting but to three hours of decent sleep at night due to worry--I once again, slept like a baby after that day in court. Shortly after winning the motions, the case came to a rather dramatic and fantastic ending! MY CASE WAS DISMISSED!!! JOE KNOWS HOW TO WIN!!