OT: Question for Attorneys and or Doctors
crazyjoe
Colorado
I need to preface this by saying I do have his individuals permission to post this. I will call him Johnny. If you are an attorney or doctor that does not want to be open on the board about being one please feel free to message me and all correspondence will be kept confidential. Thank you in advance.
I have an ex employee, Johnny who called me last weekend. He has never been in any kind of trouble and is a good guy. He made a mistake and was arrested. He had an acquaintance who sells prescription pills. This acquaintance has been in and out of jail and prison and does not work and tries to work the system for freebies. He goes to multiple doctors and gets prescriptions from each of them so he ends up with more pills to sell. This acquaintance has been regularly giving Johnny pills for free. Sounds like a trap but that is what happened. Last week Johnny goes by the drug dealers house and the dealer is not there but the room mate is. Room mate let Johnny in and was acting like usual and knew what Johnny was taking He ended up taking 4 pills with him and was arrested later that night for breaking and entering and stealing pills.
The acquaintance (dealer) reported 2 bottles of pills missing (which were full when Johnny was there). There were roughly 90 pills in each bottle or roughly 180 pills missing. Dealer then reported them stolen to his Dr. or Pharmacy and had them replaced. Sounds like the dealer threw Johnny under the bus to get more pills.
Now Johnny has some charges that he will have to deal with in court. I do not have any questions about that and I know this may be treated differently geographically. The jurisdiction this happened generally goes harder on charges like this and encourage snitching to lower sentences. The police department has asked Johnny to basically be involved in a sting operation to take down the dealer or ? in this situation.
What my question is... Would it be advisable to help in a sting operation and deal with consequences of snitching? Or could this be trap? Law enforcement is not always honest.
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18 comments
Regarding the “stolen” property if the police didn’t find all the pills with him how can ther arrest him for stealing the 180 pills? Somethings don’t add up.
Police routinely plant drugs and arms on people to get an arrest.
In any case it would be an easy case for a good defense attorney if he really is innocent, but I doubt it.
Anyhow helping the police in a “sting” is admitting gilt to some crime and trying to reduce the punishment.
I would advise against snitching. Remember
“Snitches get stitches”
Bullshit.
Maybe on "The Shield" or "Shades of Blue".
As far as planting things it does happen but I wouldn’t say routinely.
The police didn’t ask the (victim) dealer why so many pills? The police apparently know the victim is a dealer and didn’t do anything but help him get more pills with the Doctor?
Johnny should have keep his mouth shut when detained by the Police and not allowed being searched. Unless the police are working with the criminals?
Somethings don’t add up.
I would stay away from Johnny, unless Johnny is a stripper that looks like Jessica Rabbit.
Repeat:
Get a successful lawyer from the area
Repeat again:
Get a successful lawyer from the area
After I posted this I remembered a friend of mine who has been probation officer for a long time and has worked in the in the area Johnny got into trouble. He is someone in Law Enforcement that I actually trust. I called him and got some interesting feedback. I figured I would share because it is good all around advice for anyone who finds themselves in a predicament with LE.
The following is based off of what my P.O. friend said. Several mentioned that it seemed like Johnny gave out too much information to the cops. This is correct. They found him where he live and he volunteered the pills. This happens with a lot of first time offenders. They get scared and and may think that honesty and volunteering everything is the right thing to do. You should make LE work for their evidence. Handing evidence over right away is an admission of guilt and will mess up your defense. Finding a local attorney that knows the political climate at the time with recent cases and rulings is crucial. Do not use a public defender unless it is absolutely necessary. They are public defenders because they suck at what they do. I have personally seen too many people get convicted or serve more severe sentences than they should have because of a fuck up from an incompetent attorney. Hire a good one!
Never assume the cops are the good guys. There are more dirty ones than most people think. In some cases or probably more than some, cops are legally allowed to lie to get a confession or worse to get you to say something that they can take and twist into something you did not say and bring more charges or make screw you otherwise. This is why you shut the hell up and let a good attorney speak for you to avoid some of these land mines.
First time offenders... and taking deals for helping the cops. My P.O. buddy tells me scenarios of cases he has dealt with no names. He told me of one tonight where a young man was implicated in a murder. When brought in for questioning he sung like a canary and told everything about who actually did the murder. The cops made a deal with him to help them get the guilty party and told him he could go home that night. He thought it was over but the cops placed undercover surveillance outside his house and ended up making up some other case of him and basically fucked him with some trumped up charges. Cops could say they upheld the original agreement and get him another way. My buddy told me this was a sad case, but this happens a lot. He said get any agreements in writing and they always have some type of fine print attached that allows them to fuck you later. A good attorney can navigate this for you. Watch those deals! Direct from a Law Enforcement officer.
Where Johnny got in trouble is a upper middle class area with low crime and too much funding for a larger police department than is needed for the crime levels. They need something to do... Cops are not always the good guys.
If someone is giving you free drugs, there is a catch somewhere.