Transcription
Hi, everybody. Adam Rossen here today from the Rossen Law Firm and we want to talk to you about some of our great case results that we've had for our clients. Today I want to talk to you about a client named Kevin, and of course, his name is changed to protect the innocent. But he was alleged to have molested his own daughter. Very serious charges and in what we see and deal with, these are some of the most serious charges that anybody can be accused of and especially falsely accused of. This is a life ruiner, a career ruiner.
So Kevin came to us and said he didn't do it and this was actually an investigation so he had not been arrested and not been charged. He had only he was only being investigated by the police. And after about six months of us being his shield, protecting him, dealing with the police, dealing with the prosecutors, he was exonerated. He was never arrested, never charged. There's no mugshot at all. We didn't even have to defend a criminal case in court through a trial. So it was it was the best outcome we can ever have in any type of case. And to Kevin's credit, as soon as he heard about these allegations, he lawyered up. He called us immediately and we did more work than the police did in order to prove his innocence.
Now, Kevin had some serious concerns like anybody would. But for Kevin, this would have been career suicide if he was even charged. And luckily for him, you know, he's a very successful man. He is a high ranking executive at a very local company. And so, you know, he was terrified, right? His concerns, obviously, of course, being arrested and facing significant prison time, but being falsely accused. And even if he was exonerated later, most people don't remember that. Most people remember the mug shot. Most people remember going to jail. Most people will remember the news article that may be picked up from, you know, local news about this, and nobody's going to look at that and say, Hey, maybe he's falsely accused. Right? Everybody is going to look at him and say, Wow, what a terrible human being. Let him burn. And that's not right, especially for somebody who's innocent.
So on this type of case, our strategy, first and foremost, we had to be his shield. And what I tell everybody in our investigations is we are the shield we're the barrier. So the police were hounding him. They were calling him nonstop, trying to pressure him to give a statement. So we took over. We were hired. It was very late on a Friday night when we were hired and I called the police officer immediately. The detective and I emailed him as well, so we'd have a written record of it. And I told him, Hey, the buck stops here. Everything goes through me. Leave Kevin alone. And they did.
After we were able to do that. We got Kevin in. We met with him. We listened to the allegations. We got the police reports. And what we found out was there's just absolutely no way this case could have happened, that these allegations could have happened. And we dug deeper into his daughter and kind of the background between Kevin and the mother of the child. And they were never married. They had a very contentious relationship the entire time. And even during the paternity and the family law issues for child support and visitation, there were, it was very contentious and the daughter lived with the mother and would visit the father. Would visit Kevin. But Kevin was recently engaged and Kevin was starting another family. And the daughter, who was about 10/11 years old, really started to resent Kevin for that. We looked into the daughter's background and it's very sad, but she has some serious emotional and mental issues at such a young age. She had actually threatened suicide before when a boy in school didn't like her. She had had a bunch of issues and other disciplinary things in the past. And when we looked back at these two weekends that she had said that this happened, it was physically impossible. And what we had was a he-said, she-said, right? So from our point of view, that's good because the prosecutors need to get evidence. But when you actually have the truth on your side, you want to get more, you want to get more evidence.
So what we did was we took Kevin's cell phone and sent it to our extraction witness in Tallahassee. We overnighted him the phone. He ran it through what's called a Cellebrite report, and we had about 90000 pages of data from his cell phone: every single text message, every single map on Apple Maps and Google Maps, every single email. And we were able to look at GPS coordinates, where he was and where he wasn't during those two weekends that his daughter alleged that those bad things happened. And when we broke that down, we saw that the very first weekend, he actually returned her earlier to back to her mother the day the morning of she said it happened. So she said it happened Saturday, Saturday night and he actually returned her back Saturday morning. So it was physically impossible to have happened that night. The second weekend that she alleged we looked at everything and based on the GPS data based on the information in his phone, he was never alone with her that entire weekend. Again, physically impossible. And we had that's why we have expert witnesses to have them there, right, at our disposal to do things the right way. Could I have screenshot certain things? Yes. But would that really stand up if this went to a trial or court of law under the Florida rules of evidence? No. So on a case like this, we had to do it the right way and present that information.
And so while we were doing this, the next step was to make sure that the police wouldn't just come and arrest Kevin, right? A lot of times the police, when they're doing their investigation, they'll just make a decision based on probable cause, which is a very low legal standard, and they'll just come and arrest him and say, You know what? Prosecutors are the ones that charge you. We, as the police arrest you. Let them deal with it. And part of my negotiation with the police was to get them to bypass the arrest at that moment in time and send it directly to the state attorney's office, to the prosecutor's office. And then I can go lawyer to lawyer with the prosecutors, and we can discuss that case with the goal to, again, prevent the arrest. And on this particular case, that's what I was able to do.
So we prevented the arrest initially with the police, and then I had about four or five months to really negotiate with the prosecutors and say, Listen, slow down your investigation because my client's innocent and I'm going to do the detectives work and get the actual data because all they relied on was the word of a troubled little girl. So we had the data, we presented it. Of course, those things don't happen overnight. They take time. And luckily, the prosecutor was very accommodating. These are prosecutors that you know me and my team work with every day. And over the course of the next four or five months, we presented our data and they agreed with us that he was innocent and they had no good faith basis to prosecute him. So they dismissed all the charges. So there was no arrest, no mug shot online, no written record of this anywhere. And we didn't have to defend his case for two or three years while he was looking at, you know, 30 years in prison or more on a very serious charge, and he would have lost his job. His bond would have been very high. He might have had to wear an ankle monitor, you know, all things that a lot of people don't really think about and consider. And of course we do.
So this was an example of a client who took decisive action immediately, even though he was innocent. And some people might say, Well, look, if I'm innocent, let me just tell my side of the story. And unfortunately, that's not the way it works. So he did the right thing. We came in. We put that barrier that shield between him and the police, between him and any witness. And we handled it professionals to professionals and kept him safe and secure. And luckily on this case, justice was served because it would have been a complete travesty even for Kevin to be arrested. He's doing very well now. He actually has a promotion at work. Life is very good professionally, unfortunately, personally with the mother of the child and obviously those things he's still struggling with, you know, and all we can do is just try to support him and help him and take him, you know, through this situation, which is what we did. So we're very proud of this case result. We're very proud that Kevin did the right thing and this is what we do. We fight for good people and bad things happen to them. So of course, if you folks have any questions at all, give us a call, 754-206-6200.