White Collar Crime News

I hate to tell you I told you so February 19, 2009

I just read a story about a client that I met with about two years ago.  She was fired from her job last year and now both her and her husband were indicted on a variety of serious charges that will land her in prison unless she wins the case.  I know the prosecutor’s office that indicted her very well and I can almost assure you that she will go to prison if convicted regardless of whether it is plea or trial.  In order to avoid prison, she must win the case.  At least, that is my opinion.

The funny thing is, she didn’t think that she needed to pay me the retainer that I was looking for which really wasn’t that much.  I guess she never went and hired anyone since she probably wouldn’t have got indicted if she had a good attorney.  Now she is going to have to pay an attorney well over 10 times what I was looking for to go to trial on this case. 

If I was hired, I would have had years to launch my own investigation and evaluate the evidence.  It would have been great to have all of that time to interview witnesses, review financial records and start to trash the State’s case before one even exists.  As a result, you can have a good chance to prevent your client from being charged.  Or, if the evidence really looks bad, a plea can be reached before indictment to avoid prison time. 

In these situations, I sometimes wonder if the person is really worried about money or if they are just in denial.  In this case, I think it might have been a little bit of both.