False Allegations may come in many forms and from any direction. Moreover, they can sweep your feet out from under you coming as a total surprise. How do you know when you’re being investigated for a sexual assault allegation? Why would someone make an accusation against you? How do you defend against a false allegation? What if drugs or alcohol involved or the accuser is underage? When do you need to contact an attorney?
You can find out about a false accusation from complete strangers, especially through social media. Perhaps a friend of a friend makes an online or text threat. You can also find out when you’re confronted by a friend or family member. This can be devastating and cause you to get angry or lash out, but you don’t want to do that. In fact, you shouldn’t respond at all until you speak to an experienced criminal defense attorney. This is especially true if you find out from a call by the police or child protective services asking for an interview. That interview is where police or CPS begin to accumulate their evidence against you. Even if you are honest about every detail of what really happened, you are giving them information that can be used against you later in the case. Do not be fooled by the “we just want to talk” approach.
An experienced defense attorney will be help you present your side of the story in a way that guards your rights and your future defense. People make accusations of sexual assault for all sorts of reasons from jealously, attention and revenge, to mental illness and parent-guardianship reasons. An experienced law firm will take the role of finding out the why, so you don’t have to. Moreover, that why may end up being a big part of your defense strategy.
If you contact a sex crime defense attorney before a police interview or before charges are brought against you, you will have a better chance of not being indicted for a crime. The biggest mistake people make is talking to other people about the case before they talk to an attorney. The Law Office of Brian Jones often refers to police interviews as tests. However, you don’t always know the topic or the correct answers. A good defense attorney can help you prepare for the test. Don’t go into a test that could mean your freedom without being prepared.
There are many other aspects of your defense that an attorney can help you prepare for. A person accused of a sexual assault has constitutional rights that must be upheld throughout the entire process. There is a judicial timeline which must be adhered to in order to support your rights. An experienced attorney can help you meet those timelines and keep your rights intact. For example, the initial hearings and arraignment are important events in the timeline preserving your rights. It’s very important that you contact or have someone contact an attorney for you prior to an arraignment. At that hearing bail will be set, and that could make all the difference as to whether you are fighting this false allegation from behind bars or not. Fighting such an accusation from behind bars is not impossible, but it is much more difficult to communicate with the people you need to set up your defense.
In Ohio, once you are accused of a sex crime, the case will be moving forward. The State will not drop the case just because an accuser takes back what they said or recants their statement. The prosecution will continue to play offense with or without their cooperation, which means you need to be ready with a defense. Many aspects of a defense strategy will include pretrial motions and pretrial conferences where a good defense attorney can get information you may not know about. Whether there is an accusation that includes drugs or alcohol, or one that involves a minor, these factors drastically change the approach to defense that an attorney will take. Pre-trial motions and conferences can also be the key to getting the prosecution to drop the case.
With a statute of limitations of up to 25 years, being accused of a sex crime can affect you for a lifetime, even if it is dismissed. Since you can be reindicted on the case for up to 25 years, it is nothing to take lightly or try to handle on your own. The Law Office of Brian Jones uses a proven step-by-step process to assist those falsely accused from the first interaction with law enforcement, throughout the arraignment process, the development of a defense strategy, all the way to trial and sentencing hearing if necessary, or to dismissal. Don’t delay in getting an experienced criminal defense attorney on your side today.