Posted on August 14, 2013 in White collar crime

The white collar community is made up of members of the middle and upper classes that have business-related, salaried jobs.

White collar crimes most often have dishonesty or cheating as their base, as entrepreneurs or other businessmen or women commit nonviolent, illegal activities behind the cover of their legitimate businesses.

Because white collar crimes are nonviolent, they usually have a lesser punishment than other criminal activities, but the punishments often include heavy fines and sometimes jail time.

Although dishonesty in a business setting is the common background for all white collar crimes, this category of criminal activity has a very broad spectrum and is hard to define. In order to avoid allowing loopholes in the law for these well-educated, intelligent criminals, the federal and state governments in America have laws that protect against specific, more common white collar crimes, but also general white collar crime laws to catch everything in one law.

Tax crimes are great examples of more common white collar crimes. Usually people are charged with tax crimes alongside other white collar crimes. Tax crimes include failing to file your tax returns, interfering with internal revenue laws administration and filing fake tax returns.

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 Posted on August 11, 2013 in Criminal Defense

Assault and battery is most often heard as a single term and not thought of as two separate criminal offenses, which is what they are. A judge can charge a person with one or the other, although they are typically paired together.

Assault is defined in Illinois lawas, “conduct which places another in reasonable apprehension of receiving battery.”

Battery can be either “conduct causing bodily harm to another person or insulting, provocation or unwanted physical contact with another person.”

The main difference is that assault does not include physical contact or injury to the victim.

Once it is found that someone is guilty of battery, the court must then determine the degree, such as whether or not the crime was aggravated battery, which is more serious. Aggravated assault may be charged if the victim has a serious injury or if the defendant used a deadly weapon.

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 Posted on August 07, 2013 in Criminal Defense

Hearing about people running away from the police or trying to elude the police has become commonplace in today’s headlines. However, according to the Chicago Tribune, Vincent Richardson wanted nothing more than to be the police himself.

He first made headlines a little over four years ago when he passed himself off as a law enforcement officer at the age of 14. He showed up at the police station as if he was reporting to work and he went on patrol with another officer for over 5 hours before he was busted and his civilian status was revealed.

This time, at the age of 19, he walked into a uniform store and identified himself as a police officer that worked in the Englewood neighborhood. He presented his driver’s license and told the clerk that he wanted to try on some cargo shorts as well as checking out some utility belts. When Richardson kept repeating that he was an officer in Englewood, the clerk became suspicious and decided to look him up. He then found, through an Internet search, that he had been arrested before. When police arrived at the scene, they arrested Richardson. Upon his arrest, Richardson stated that he respected the job that the police do and that he never intended to hurt anyone, he only wanted to help.

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 Posted on August 02, 2013 in Criminal Defense

The Chicago Sun Times recently published a story about a woman who has been arrested 396 times since 1978. She is now being housed in the Logan Correctional Center from which she is to be released in November of this year.

If the Chairman of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board has anything to say about it, Shermain Miles will be admitted to a mental health and substance abuse program as soon as she completes her sentence with the Illinois Department of Corrections. Her current counselor states that she has been “very cooperative and informed” while receiving care for her mental health issues while she has been in Logan.

While she has applied to several different programs and considered different options for her releases, the one that was rejected was for her to be paroled to the ward where she assaulted a council member. Most of her arrests have been for thefts, 92 in fact. She was arrested 65 different times for disorderly conduct, 59 times for crimes such as prostitution, and another 5 times for robbery related offenses. She has also been arrested under at least 83 different known identities.

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 Posted on July 30, 2013 in DUI/DWI

Most people would agree that it is the role of school employees to educate children and to serve as a good example to them. According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, a private school principal served as anything except a role model.

Joseph Academy principal, Michael Zajac, was arrested on DUI charges with a blood alcohol level that was two times the legal limit. What is ironic about the arrest is that Joseph Academy, located in Hometown, is a school that deals with children who have “severe emotional challenges”, as cited by the school’s website.

This is not Zajac’s first brush with the law. He received a DUI in 1997 as well as 2000. He also was convicted of battery in 2003 for which he received a sentence of 25 days of public service and 18 months of supervision by the court. With his current arrest, he is facing several charges. He has been charged with a felony aggravated DUI and he also received citations for improper lane usage, speeding, illegal transport of alcohol, and not having proof of insurance. He has been ordered by the Cook County Criminal Court to be held on a bond of $25,000.00.

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 Posted on July 26, 2013 in Violent Crime

According to a recent report by DNA Info, a 23-year-old man is facing serious charges after an altercation with his pregnant girlfriend. The couple resided together in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood.

Investigators found that the couple does have an 11-month-old child together but that Jovanny Martinez was not the father of the child that she was pregnant with. They started arguing about her pregnancy and the fight ended up getting physical. Martinez then started punching her in the stomach repeatedly. Soon after, the victim reported that she thought that her water broke. She realized that she was bleeding. The victim was then taken to the hospital where she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.

Initially, the victim told law enforcement officials that she had been attacked by a group of women and one man. However, later she recanted her statement and identified Martinez as the person who attacked her.

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 Posted on July 23, 2013 in White collar crime

White collar crimes cover a very broad spectrum because there is no exact definition. Most often, however, white collar crimes are thought of as crimes committed by business people that involve cheating and dishonesty. Usually these people commit these crimes under the cover of a legitimate business as well, so the crime can remain hidden for a long time without suspicion.

Because it is very difficult to create a definition that defines all white collar crimes, there are federal laws and state laws that are specific to certain types of white collar crimes and also umbrella laws that encompass anything else.

Here are two examples of white collar crimes:

Obstruction of Justice

Obstruction of justice can be committed in many ways, as long as it somehow interferes with one of the three branches of government. Some examples of obstruction include influencing a juror outside the courtroom, altering a record process, obstructing any criminal investigation by law officials and assaulting a process server.

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 Posted on July 20, 2013 in Criminal Defense

If you have been charged with and found guilty of a crime in the U.S., you may have to pay a fine, serve jail time and/or be on probation for a certain length of time. Probation is usually after you get out of jail, although sometimes it is a less severe alternative, when you can live home, but you are still under strict supervision by law officials and you are still limited to what you can and cannot do.

When you are being supervised for probation, your officer makes sure that people on probation follow all the conditions that were set by the court when he or she was released.

Probation officers are also responsible for the safety of the community in which the person on probation is released into. Along with the safety of the community, probation officers also help with the health of the person on probation. This includes medical care, employment assistance and mental health treatment, basically anything that will help him or her to re-enter into the community.

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 Posted on July 16, 2013 in Violent Crime

A Chicago grandmother, Helen M. Ford, 51, is being held on no bail and is facing a murder charge in the death of her granddaughter, according to the New York Daily News. According to the Daily News, Ford had been inflicting “abuse for so long that the dead little girl had maggots living in a head wound that had gone untreated.” The girl, Gizzell Kiara Ford, was eight years old. She was dead, and her body had already gone cold, when cops responded to a call of a person not breathing, according to the Daily News. “The girl lived with her grandmother and bedridden father, both of whom were home when the girl died,” reports the Daily News. “Ford initially told cops the girl inflicted the injuries herself, but police found several bruises, burns, and cuts on her body, lying face up in a bedroom in the home.”

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 Posted on July 08, 2013 in Your Rights

The fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution is one of the most important protections against governmental intrusion. It guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” In other words, the fourth amendment requires that searches or seizures be reasonable. “So, what is reasonable?” one may ask. Courts have interpreted reasonableness to require a warrant supported by probable cause. Thus, before law enforcement officials can search something or someone, or arrest someone, they need to go in front of a judge with enough evidence and obtain a warrant.

However, the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized certain exceptions to the warrant based on probable cause requirement. For example, in what are known as Terry stops (named after the Terry v. Ohiocase), law enforcement officers may briefly detain someone and quickly perform a pat down search if the officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot. These searches, however, are meant to ensure the safety of law enforcement, i.e. if the officer has a reason to believe that the suspect is carrying a weapon, he should be allowed to ensure that the person is not a danger to the officer. Terry stops, however, are not supposed to be a fact gathering expedition.

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