I just got word that all charges were dismissed against my client in a federal criminal case I have been working on for several years. It feels good for several reasons, some obvious, others are more subtle.
One of the main reasons the dismissal feels so good is that I am virtually certain that my client did not commit a crime in the first place. She was previously married to and had children with one of the other people charged in the case. Her ex-husband was connected to some properties where investigators located evidence of criminal activity. There were only two ways that my client was involved in the overall case. The first was that her ex-husband (or someone working with him) hid other evidence of criminal activity in her back yard that investigators located with a search warrant. Second, investigators got a warrant for her bank records, and a search of her accounts showed that she had significant savings even though she worked a low-paying job. My staff and I were able to go back and demonstrate that the accounts grew to these large balances because she saved like we are all supposed to do: a little bit at a time and never spending lots of money. Even if the case had gone to trial, I feel confident we would have been able to convince the jury that the money was from her hard work and not from someone else’s criminal acts. Continue reading