Don't give up. You can still ship out on time with the right criminal defense strategy. The secret here is to study the regulations for your branch of the armed services and determine what crimes will trigger the need for a "waiver" from your commanding officer. You do not want to be convicted of a crime [...]
How Many Controlled Buys Does it Take? The informant plays a valuable role in a successful Minnesota drug bust. The informant could be a first time citizen informant with no criminal history performing his civic duty. This type of informant is presumed by the courts to be reliable. The informant could be a confidential informant known as a CI who [...]
I recently represented a client who was charged in Anoka County District Court with 5th Degree Controlled Substance crime. Police officers executed a search warrant at the defendant’s residence eleven days after the warrant was issued by the court. Officers located a felony amount of marijuana in his bedroom. The law in Minnesota regarding [...]
Let's say that as a part of an ongoing investigation into suspected drug dealing, the police have obtained a search warrant for your computer. The search warrant gives the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension permission to search your computer for "photographs, internet searches, communications including but not limited to emails, videos, stored data, and any [...]
You are now able to petition the court to expunge from your record petty misdemeanor convictions, misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor convictions, and certain felony convictions. The expungement law in Minnesota has been amended to allow for a more complete remedy. Now you can seal from public view not only the courthouse file containing all the dreaded facts [...]
Sex trafficking is a serious felony offense under Minnesota law and is as: (a) receiving, recruiting, enticing, harboring, providing, or obtaining by any means an individual to aid in the prostitution of the individual; or (2) receiving profit or anything of value, knowing or having reason to know it is derived from an act described [...]
Mortgage fraud is a complex white collar crime and can involve obtaining mortgage loan proceeds by perpetrating such crimes as identity theft, forgeries, bank fraud, wire fraud, theft by swindle and racketeering. Oftentimes, fake identity documents are created for a straw buyer who is paid for his role in the scheme. The documents may falsely [...]
It is possible to reduce the amount of time you will spend in prison. You will need the right set of facts and circumstances to reach this goal. The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines establish the presumptive prison sentence in every serious felony case. The determination of the sentence is based on the severity level of the [...]
Depending on how the case is charged out by the prosecution, the defense of consent may be available to criminal defendants charged with rape. Consent is defined under Minnesota law as a person's words or overt actions that indicate a freely given present agreement to perform a particular sexual act. Consent does not exist simply [...]
Coming soon to a courthouse near you is a way to seal your criminal past. We have all made mistakes and fallen into trouble with the law. Now you have a chance to keep your future employer, landlord, friend, or relative from finding out about a prior conviction. On January 1, 2015, a new expungement [...]