Contra Costa County Superior Court
Client is a 22 year old high school volleyball coach. He became romantically involved with a 17 year old young woman from another high school. After a year of dating with the knowledge of both parents, the relationship was reported to school officials who contacted the police. A female officer from the City of Lafayette Police Department interviewed the 17 year old for over 1 1/2 hours. During that interview the 17 year old initially would not state she had sex with the client during the relationship. After undue coercion by the officer (who called her a liar 31 times and threatened her with arrest and jail for lying to the police and perjury), the young woman admitted that she and the client had performed mutual masturbation with each other. The young woman was re-interviewed after the client's arrest by the same officer who ridiculed and berated her for not remembering exactly where and when the sexual contact had taken place. The District Attorney initially declined to file charges and had the young woman re-interviewed at a forensic interview center. Two months later the client was charged with 10 felony counts of sexual penetration of a person under 18 years of age. He faced jail time and sex registration for life. The defense focused on the investigating officer's coercive interviews of the young woman. The defense demanded discovery of the officer's training in regard to interviewing minor victims of sexual assault and the policies and procedures used by her agency regarding such interviews. The defense also demanded any records from the officer's personnel file for citizen complaints regarding coercive interrogations and interviews. On the day of the court hearing on the defense motions the case was settled for a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and 100 hours of community service.
NO FELONY SEX CRIME CONVICTION. NO SEX REGISTRATION. NO JAIL.
Alameda County Superior Court
Client had suffered a conviction for felony sexual battery 5 years prior. The judge at sentencing had erroneously imposed sex registration for the period of probation only. After client had his charge reduced to a misdemeanor and expunged, he was informed he was still required to register as a sex offender for life. Our office moved to withdraw the previous guilty plea due to the error in sentencing regarding sex registration. The court withdrew the plea and client entered a plea to misdemeanor statutory rape with no requirement of sex registration. Client’s record was expunged that very day.
Client was removed from the sex offender database in Sacramento.