White Collar Crime News

From witness to suspect June 24, 2009

I’ve been working hard on one of my latest white collar crime cases and I thought I’d share a conversation I had with a law enforcement official.  I can’t get too much into the details of the case, but my client isn’t charged with anything at all.  However, law enforcement is performing an investigation and my client is part of it one way or another. 

Like usual, I did some great work right away and I actually knew more than this detective than what was going on; at least in one aspect of the case.  She wanted to speak with my client and she assured me that he was just being looked at as a witness.  However, after further questioning, she did admit that my client could go from a witness to a suspect depending on what he said.

So I’m suppose to sit there and let him talk while I hope for the best?  I of course questioned her even further.  I learned that there was no prosecutor on the case yet.  Thus, she can’t promise me a damn thing.  What if she thinks that my client is just a witness but then this unknown prosecutor thinks otherwise?  I then asked, if my client is just a  witness, why not draw up an immunity agreement?  Of course, there was no real response to that one.

In the end, the prep work that I had already done on  the case took the focus off of my guy for now.  We’ll see how it pans out.

This is why you should have an attorney that knows what he or she is doing.  The fact that she expected me to just walk my client in there and have him dig a huge hole for himself tells me that most attorneys just go with it, otherwise she wouldn’t ask.  Of course, you also can’t have an attorney that tells the cop to take a hike.  After all, you can do that on your own right?  Instead, a plan needs to be developed and executed to protect you and your family.  That is what I do for my clients.