Falsely Accused

Imagine one night you are taking a walk through a park on your way home, you see some friends and stop and talk with them as you speak with them the police come and surround you, the next thing you know you are patted down and placed in cuffs. You are told to stand on the sidewalk your friends are all now cuffed and placed in the same predicament. Minutes later you are told that you are being placed under arrest for Robbery, Sexual Assault, and Street Terrorism. You are taken to jail and processed. You are looking at 40 years in prison. The district attorneys office has police officers and crime scene technicians, you have a defense attorney and if you can afford one an investigator. 

My offices happened to get a call about this case approximately a month after the arrest. The attorney stated that her client said that at the time of the alleged crime he was not even in the area and therefor it would have been impossible for him to have committed this crime. We interview the client and he provides us a time line of where he was, when he was there, and who he was with. We track down his witnesses and confirm the times that he was with them and the places he went with them to. We are able to discern that there definitely was a time discrepancy. Now we turn our attention to the victim of the crime. After several attempts we were able to finally be able to speak to the victim who was a minor with the permission of the mother. The victim was very much traumatized by the whole event but stated that they would be willing to speak to us about the matter. We started off by asking the victim about their day, the victim stated that they woke up in the morning, hung around their home until the afternoon, then went out and hung out with some friends. They decided to go to a local carnival and after that they walked through the park. While walking through the park they were approached by four males, one of who brandished a weapon and told them to stay put and give them their belongings, the victim stated that another male pulled them aside and started fondling them, they even attempted to get into the victims shorts but were not able to due to the victims belt. For whatever reason, after the robbery and the physical altercation, the guys committing this crime departed the area. I asked the victim if she remembered what the suspects looked like, she said she did and even knew one of them, I asked her to describe them to me, she described them and none of them matched the ethnicity of my client, I also asked how tall were they, the victim gave heights that were well below the height of my client, I then showed the victim a picture of my client and asked had the victim seen him there that night, the victim said no, I also asked if my client was the one that had tried to get into their shorts and the victim said absolutely not as my client was a Caucasian male and the suspects were not Caucasian. I asked the victim if they ever pointed at my client and said that he was a part of this robbery or sexual assault the victim stated that on the night everything happened an officer drover them by where they had picked up my client and their friends, the officers asked the victim if they recognized anyone and the victim pointed to the individual next to my client, the victim than asked the officer to please get them out of there as the victim knew that these individuals were affiliated with a local gang. The victim apologized ( if you can believe that) for my client getting arrested and wrongfully accused of this crime. 

The evidence that we obtained was taken to the district attorneys office, keep in mind we could prove that our client was at a different place when the alleged incident occurred, and that the victim stated that he was not there, that he was taller and of a different race than the people that had allegedly committed the crime. The district attorneys office took a while to respond. Our client sat in jail an additional two months before the judge reviewed the new evidence that we had and decided to throw the case out. We use this case to show that you can get arrested wrongfully, that you can be guilty by association. If this client had not had the resources to launch an investigation there is a high probability that they would have done a plea bargain and done some time for a crime that they did not commit. 

Morrow Detective Agency is a licensed private investigation firm located on the border of Ventura and Los Angeles, Ca in Simi Valley, CA. Morrow Detective Agency is capable of performing surveillance, process service, locates, background investigations, asset investigations, and more. Please feel free to visit our website at www.MorrowDetectiveAgency.com or give us a call at (805) 823-3540 and allow us to make your problem our solution!