Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog

We are proud to announce that Law offices of Sebastian John Balliro, P.A. is sponsoring radio station 93 Rock's Best Damn Brew Review event -- happening this Friday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. This is the station's outdoor beer garden and concert, featuring 200 beers and a concert stage with local South Florida bands Ghost of Gloria, Venejer and Streetkind. Along with First Class Transportation, we are sponsoring the Safe Ride Home program, which offers rides home to participants who don't feel safe to drive. Our West Palm Beach DUI defense attorneys know firsthand how costly a drunk driving charge can be, in lives and money, and we want everyone to have fun and arrive home safely.

Here's the radio promo for the event, which mentions us as a sponsor. For more information, you can check out the BDBR page at 93rock.com.

Our West Palm Beach tax fraud criminal defense attorneys were extremely interested in a Feb. 21 Miami Herald article about an unusual tax fraud scheme. According to the article, inmates at the Monroe County Jail near Key West ran a large-scale tax fraud scheme netting nearly $1 million in bogus refunds. The participants were not in jail for tax fraud, and in most cases have moved on to prison for unrelated crimes since the crimes were uncovered nearly three years ago. But while they were in jail, about 50 inmates were able to claim refunds for taxes they never paid, “automatically deducted” from paychecks that never existed. The article says this is a growing problem in jails and prisons around the nation.

Investigators say two inmates served as ringleaders in the schemes, and even charged other inmates for information on how it worked. Shawn Clarke and Danilo Suarez filed 1040EZ forms along with Form 4852, which is a self-reported substitute for a W-2. Participants fabricated their information, claiming to have worked for companies that don’t really exist, sometimes while they were in jail. Some filed multiple returns despite having never before filed tax returns, claiming an average of about $5,000 in returns. Jail officials uncovered the scheme in late 2006 when they found a written document in a cell, and handed the IRS a case complete with confessions and recordings of incriminating phone calls. Local officials complain that the federal government has delayed the case for years, bringing evidence before a grand jury only this month.

As Miami tax fraud criminal defense lawyers, we’re pleased that the federal government is prosecuting this well-documented case. (However, we’d like to note that jailhouse confessions are unreliable, because prisoners can be under duress.) But if authorities start seriously pursing tax fraud from jails and prisons, we’re concerned that inmates who make honest mistakes may get swept up in the investigations. The article notes that some of the inmates in this case had never filed tax returns before. The tax code is notoriously complicated and confusing; it must be even more confusing for those with no past tax experience, some of whom may never have held a legal job. Such inmates may also honestly rely on bad advice from people like Clarke and Suarez. It would be a shame to criminally prosecute such a person for trying to do the right thing.

Continue reading " Investigation Finds Key West Inmates Filed False Tax Returns From Jail " »

An unusual Valentine’s Day story caught the attention of our Miami assault and battery criminal defense attorneys. A Feb. 16 article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel says a man was arrested Sunday for attacking a couple celebrating Valentine’s Day. The unidentified man and woman said Larry Bert Sexton, 37, broke into their house and attacked both of them with his fists. Sexton and an unnamed acquaintance said they saw the man beating up the woman and tried to help. Law enforcement in St. Lucie County apparently sided with the couple, charging Sexton with two counts of battery, impersonating an officer and burglary of an occupied dwelling.

The incident happened around 4 a.m. early on Feb. 14. According to the newspaper, the man said he arrived at the home with flowers and carried the woman inside. About ten minutes later, he said, Sexton kicked down the door and announced that he was a sheriff’s deputy. Sexton then threw a punch that missed, followed the man into a bedroom and began punching him. The woman tried to pull Sexton away from the fight, but Sexton turned and began strangling her. After the fight, Sexton went into a house across the street. Sexton told police he and a resident had been watching the couple from that house. He said he saw them in an argument that turned violent; his companion said they saw a man beating up a woman. Police found no evidence to support that, the article said.

As West Palm Beach battery criminal defense lawyers, we are not so sure. The article doesn’t have enough detail to show who was telling the truth, but it’s easy to see another side to the story. For one thing, it’s a sad truth, and well-known to law enforcement, that victims of domestic violence often side with their abusers. If the man truly was beating the woman, it’s not unlikely that she would try to help cover it up after the fact, and even try to defend him from Sexton. The police said they found no evidence of a fight, but the fight with Sexton may have covered up evidence of a previous fight. While it was illegal for Sexton to lie about being a sheriff’s deputy, he may have been trying to scare the man. And if there was no intent to batter the couple or commit any other crime, the burglary charge is legally bogus and must be dropped.

Continue reading " Treasure Coast Man Arrested for Assault in Alleged ‘Good Samaritan’ Incident " »

The recent arrest of Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Tony McDaniel highlights issues we believe are important in any case of alleged domestic abuse. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Feb. 7 that McDaniel, 25, was arrested the day before and charged with misdemeanor battery of his girlfriend. The arrest report said McDaniel and Alaina Smith had an argument outside their Davie home Saturday morning that turned into a shoving match. The two have different accounts of the reasons for the fight as well as the physical part of the confrontation. This he-said, she-said problem is one of the most common situations affecting our practice as Fort Lauderdale domestic violence criminal defense attorneys.

According to the article, Smith was returning to the house with food around 8:30 a.m., around the same time McDaniel was coming home from a night out. Smith said McDaniel confronted her about not answering the phone the night before, then grabbed her purse. During their struggle for the purse, she said she fell and hit her head. She ran into the house, she said, asked her guests to call 911 and ran out to find McDaniel smashing her phone on the ground. McDaniel told police Smith was upset at him for staying out all night and started scratching and slapping him. Police found scratches on both parties, but no head injury on Smith, who declined medical treatment. The houseguests said they saw the argument, Smith’s fall and McDaniel smashing the phone. He was arrested and released on $3,500 bail the next day.

As Miami-Dade spousal abuse criminal defense lawyers, we see stories like this time and time again. Each person claims the other started the fight; the physical evidence doesn’t say much; and there are few, if any, witnesses. This means the police are forced to choose the story they think fits the situation better. More often than not, police choose to believe the woman and arrest the man, following outdated gender stereotypes. The truth is that people of both genders can be guilty of domestic violence, and Florida law recognizes that either spouse can be a victim. Arresting the husband or boyfriend at the first sign of trouble may stop the fight, but it can also unfairly and unnecessarily get him into major, life-changing legal trouble.

Continue reading " Miami Dolphins Player Arrested for Domestic Violence After Fight With Girlfriend " »

As Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorneys, we were interested to see that a law with major implications for South Florida government is going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to a Jan. 31 article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the court is expected to rule in the next few months on the legality of a federal law that has sent several politicians to prison in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The “honest services fraud” law is a 28-word add-on to the federal law prohibiting wire and mail fraud. It can be used in private business, but is most often used to criminally charge government figures who are accused of using their offices to get material advantages that don’t meet the stricter definition of bribes. In the Supreme Court case, an Alaska politician convicted of corruption is challenging the law as unconstitutionally vague.

In Weyhrauch v. United States, former Alaska state senator Bruce Weyhrauch was convicted of failing to disclose that he was seeking employment with an oil company before he voted in that firm’s interest on a tax bill. In South Florida, politicians were prosecuted for honest services fraud for actions like taking money to help businesses get municipal contracts, or using decision-making power to profit from secret land deals. Prosecutors like the law because it allows them to prosecute politicians who didn’t accept an outright bribe, but still lined their pockets instead of working for taxpayers. Detractors say the statute is so broad that it’s impossible for an average person to understand what’s prohibited. The language of the law says “For the purposes of this chapter, the term ‘scheme or artifice to defraud’ includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”

We know arguing in favor of allegedly corrupt politicians does not always make attorneys popular. But as West Palm Beach criminal defense lawyers, we agree that the language of the law seems like it may be overly broad. The article quoted Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who observed that the law could prohibit using personal or political influence to get a restaurant reservation. In fact, depriving someone of honest services could be an act as small as goofing off at work. Without clarity about what the law actually prohibits, both public and private employees are at risk of prosecution for any action the local prosecutors don’t happen to like. This not only creates injustice, but opens the door to politically motivated prosecutions that abuse the law.

Continue reading " Supreme Court to Rule on Anti-Corruption Law Used Against South Florida Officials " »