Orlando, Florida Criminal Defense Blog

The Polk County Sheriff's Office made 41 arrests so far in June through its on-line predator sting operation. The crimes that are charged in these sting operations include: use of a computer to solicit sex from a minor; attempted lewd battery; traveling to meet a minor; and other serious felonies. The crimes can result in long terms in prison. The effect of a conviction carries past the time in prison because many of these crimes require registration as a sex offender.

Law enforcement pose as minors seeking sex or as parents of minors who are willing to allow their children to have sex. No actual sex occurs because when people show up at the address of the minor, they are arrested.

Because of the serious penalties following the arrest in these on-line sting operations, an experienced criminal defense attorney is necessary to protect the defendant's rights, explore all potential defenses and try to lessen the potential punishment.

The question arises whenever a criminal conviction is based on evidence from a confidential informant: what if that informant is lying? Typically, informants are people who have agreed to help the government because they themselves are accused of serious crimes, meaning there is an incentive for them to do whatever is necessary to get the evidence that will save them from prison -- even, in some cases, if that means engaging in entrapment or even framing others.

A Guatemalan man has reason to suspect the reliability of the confidential informant whose testimony led to his 2009 conviction on federal conspiracy to commit cocaine trafficking and money laundering charges. After being convicted and sentenced to 9-1/2 years in federal prison, he learned that informant had later been "deactivated" for lying to the Drug Enforcement Agency in other cases.

The reliability of that witness was central to his trial, and evidence that the informant was lying might entitle him to a retrial. So, he filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the DEA's records about the informant's criminal past and why he was deactivated for lying.

In a 5-to-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that it's only reasonable to allow police to obtain DNA evidence via cheek swab from anyone arrested for a serious felony or violent crime. Furthermore, the high court said, states can enter suspects' DNA profiles into a federal database where they can be used in an effort to solve cold cases.

The ruling came as a surprise to many criminal defense and civil rights advocates, who had been somewhat reassured by other recent high court decisions that upheld citizens' privacy rights in the face of apparently unreasonable intrusion by government agents. The newly upheld DNA cheek swabs apply to people who have been arrested but not convicted of any crime, so many people who are later acquitted or released without charge will be subjected to the test and entered into the database.

Imagine you are a graduating Florida high school student, excited about the prospects of going to college next year. You get into the school of your dreams; but before accepting you, the school must perform a background check on you.

A few years ago, you were arrested for marijuana possession. You were just a young kid; and as young kids are wont to do, they will make childish mistakes. In fact, most people all across the country made the same mistakes when they were kids -- but were lucky enough not to get caught. Curiosity is a part of growing up; and while doing drugs is never a good thing, many kids experiment with drugs while they are teenagers.

A Windermere police officer -- a training officer, in fact -- is currently on trial for allegedly conducting traffic stops solely based on the race of the driver, which is a violation of those drivers' constitutional right to be free from illegal search and seizure. One of the officers he trained recently testified that the man had instructed him to pull over what he called "Bravo vehicles," which he admitted meant certain types of cars driven by African Americans, although he denies the term was meant derogatively. The trainee also said he witnessed the man stopping three "Bravo vehicles" for no legal reason during the month he was being trained.

Generally, when law enforcement officers can be shown to have engaged in illegal search and seizure, the main consequence is that any evidence officers obtain that way is excluded as evidence -- it cannot be used against the defendant in court. It's also possible to bring a civil rights lawsuit against the police for constitutional violations, but people rarely do so over traffic tickets or even drunk driving charges.

While the exclusion of tainted evidence can encourage  police not to overstep the bounds of their authority, it's often not enough. Law enforcement agencies also need to have strong internal controls to prevent corruption, along with a culture where officers take pride in following the law.

Over the past few years, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been focusing much of their attention on U.S. companies suspected of bribing government officials abroad. When bribes are offered or taken in another country, criminal corporate bribery allegations are typically prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA. One weakness of that law, from a prosecutor's point of view, is that it only gives them jurisdiction over people in the U.S.; foreign officials who receive bribes from U.S. companies cannot be prosecuted under the statute.

In a recent case, however, the Justice Department took a new tack. When the Miami-based affiliate of a New York brokerage called Direct Access Partners was accused of bribing the vice president of a state-controlled development bank in Venezuela, Justice found a way to charge that bank president with U.S. financial crimes -- even though she was a foreign national working abroad.

How? It filed charges under a Kennedy-era law called the Travel Act, which was meant to combat organized crime, and followed that up with money laundering charges.

The IRS recently announced that it will obtain account records of U.S. Citizens from banks located in Singapore, The British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, and the Cook Islands. Banks located on these islands have long been considered safe havens for privacy and secret bank accounts.

Obtaining bank records from these island tax-havens is part of IRS efforts to pursue international tax evasion. The efforts of the United States have been helped by recent legislation which has motivated countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia to cooperate with the United States in order to ascertain information about those who may be illegally evading taxes. Those with offshore bank accounts that have not previously been disclosed to the IRS may find themselves the subject of civil audits, criminal investigation and prosecution.

Entry into the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, however, is still possible even though the United States will be obtaining offshore account information in the near future from banks which previously had the reputation and practice of being very private.

The Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program provides a means by which people can avoid criminal prosecution, incarceration and significantly reduce the civil penalties that would otherwise be imposed when the IRS discovers undisclosed offshore bank accounts.

Even though the United States has reached an agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom to obtain the information from the banks located on these tax-haven islands, the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program is still available to U.S. Citizens as long as they enter the program before the banks provide the account information.

For a confidential consultation concerning offshore accounts, criminal consequences of non-disclosure and opportunities provided by the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, contact the Law Offices of Mark L. Horwitz, PA at 407-843-7733.

The arrest of a 16-year-old high school student from Bartow after an ordinary science project has made national news this week. Considering our nation's urgency to promote interest in the so-called STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and math) among the nation's youth, the Polk County Public School District's decision to expel the girl over a harmless science project has engendered nationwide outrage. When it was followed up by the girl's arrest on two felony weapons offenses, people were stunned.

The story involves a 16-year-old girl who had never been in trouble with school officials or the law until recently, when her school science project didn't go as expected. She wasn't fooling around or attempting to break the law, however, and she did apparently take safety precautions.

Around 7:00 a.m. on Monday, April 29, the girl went outside on school property and mixed up some household chemicals in an 8-ounce water bottle. She expected the combined chemicals to create smoke. Instead, the reaction caused the plastic top of the water bottle to pop off -- or, as it has been more dramatically put, the reaction caused a small explosion -- along with the expected smoke. No one was hurt.

In 2008, a young man accused an Orange County deputy who had been working as a school resource officer -- apparently falsely -- of having committed sex crimes against him as a child. While the deputy was able to mount a successful defense in that case, his acquittal came at the cost of his career. Why? Because Orange County Sheriff's Office policy requires all officers to cooperate fully and truthfully with any internal investigation, and this officer reserved his right not to speak to investigating officers on the advice of his attorney.

This isn't precisely a case of the deputy's constitutional right against self-incrimination being violated, because he was legally free not to talk to the officers who were trying to build a case against him. No one compelled him to speak to the officers or to incriminate himself. The only problem was that he could not exercise his right to remain silent and expect to keep his job as a police officer.

The issue is one of analogy. Since we value our Fifth Amendment rights, isn't it surprising that a law enforcement agency would adopt a policy that pits an officer's constitutional rights directly against his employment?