Posted on November 06, 2014 in Victim's Rights

On October 14, 20014, prominent D.C. Rabbi and religious scholar Barry Freundel was arrested by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and charged with various offenses relating to voyeurism. According to charging documents, Rabbi Freundel installed recording devices in the changing/shower area connected to a Jewish ritual bath known as a "mikvah."

Rabbi Freundel was affiliated with Kesher Israel in Washington, D.C., he was a Jewish studies professor at Georgetown Law and he served on the faculty at Towson University in Maryland. Preliminary information suggests Rabbi Freundel encouraged his female students to participate in the mikvah and thousands of women who used the mikvah face the very real prospect that Rabbi Freundel captured and/or distributed the women’s images without their knowledge or consent. Media accounts indicate that several of the institutions with which Rabbi Freundel was affiliated are currently investigating other potential misconduct and MPD’s investigation in that regard is ongoing.

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 Posted on November 04, 2014 in Criminal Defense

As an Aggressive Maryland Criminal Attorney for almost 20 years I have handled hundreds if not thousands of criminal cases in which my client is alleged to have made an incriminating statement or a confession to the police. For obvious reasons, these statements are devastating to the defense and under most circumstances all but ensure a conviction.

Typically the only available strategy in these situations is to file a motion to suppress the statement alleging some violation of the defendant’s Constitutional Rights in the taking of the statement. Unfortunately for criminal defendants, these statements are rarely suppressed by trial judges, particularly when they are given after the defendant is advised of his Miranda rights and the statement is recorded. But that is exactly what happened in this case. Here are the facts:

In March of last year the Baltimore City police were called to the scene of a single car accident. The responding officers found a car crashed into a telephone pole with the unresponsive driver slumped over the steering wheel. An examination of the driver revealed that he had been shot in the back and had apparently subsequently driven from the scene of the shooting to the scene of the crash. He was transported to the hospital where he later died from the gunshot wound. There were no witnesses to the shooting.

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 Posted on October 24, 2014 in Criminal Defense

As a Baltimore Criminal Attorney with 20 years of experience I have represented thousands of people charged in criminal cases in District and Circuit Courts throughout the State. As a result of my experience, reviews of my clients and industry recognition – that is, recognition from other experienced criminal attorneys, I have earned very high ratings from attorney rating services such as Avvo and Superlawyers.

Unfortunately, I was shocked to recently learn that some inexperienced lawyers, have managed to game the system to get ratings similar to those given to highly experienced attorneys. I will discuss how specifically how I found this out below but, anyone who searches for an attorney using a rating service should carefully scrutinize the attorney qualifications of the attorney starting with how long the attorney has been practicing. This information should also be cross checked by searching the attorney on Maryland Judiciary Case Search. This website is maintained by the State and contains accurate information concerning an attorneys appearances in court. In other words, this is the court record and it doesn’t lie. Here is how I found out about this situation:

About a month ago I was checking my profile on one of the rating services. I decided to browse through the competition and as expected, found many highly experience criminal attorneys that I knew listed along with me at the top with the highest ratings. But I also saw a few names and faces that I had never seen before. This made me curious so I looked a little more carefully at a few of their profiles and was shocked to see that several of them had been practicing for less than two years but had still received ratings of "Superb" with a 9.9 on a 10 point scale! ( I have a perfect10.0 Superb rating from Avvo and am ranked as one of the Top 100 lawyers in the State by Superlawyers – only one other criminal attorney in the entire state was named among the Top 100).

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 Posted on October 01, 2014 in Criminal Defense

Most Criminal Attorneys in Baltimore County Maryland are familiar with the so call "gun range cases" that have been charged in Balitmore County for the last several years. These cases are viewed as controversial by many, including the writer, as they tend to look more an effort to build gun prosecution statistics than legitimate efforts by the police to protect the community from gun weilding convicted criminals. As I have described in the past, these are very serious offenses that can in certain circumstances subject the person charged to minimum mandatory 5 year prison terms.

This past week I was able to successfully resolve two serparate matters involving husband and wife co-defendants, one in which the duo were charged in two separate jurisdictions. The facts of the two cases were nearly identical:

Detectives of the Baltimore County Police Firearms Unit have for several years been aggressively monitoring the patrons of both the Continental Arms Range in Timonium and the Freestate Range in Middle River. For those who are unfamiliar with how gun ranges operate, when a patron enters a range and requests to shoot at the facility, they are required to provide a driver’s license and to fill out a questionnaire regarding the person’s experience with firearms and the person’s criminal history, if any.

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 Posted on September 23, 2014 in Criminal Defense

As an Aggressive Maryland Criminal Lawyer, I have represented hundreds of defendants charged with Possession with the Intent to Distribute Controlled Dangerous Substances over the past 16 years. These are very serious cases, often involving complicated Fourth Amendment, illegal search and seizure issues. They are also cases that can carry lengthy mandatory sentences that must be served without the possibility of parole, particularly for repeat offenders. It is imperative that a person charged with one of these serious offenses take the time and care to ensure that they are represented by an attorney who has both the experience and the expertise to handle such a case. I strongly recommend that as in the case of being diagnosed with a serious illness, someone charged with a Felony such as Possession with the Intent to Distribute, should seek out at least two opinions from an attorney who is a specialists in both criminal law and the jurisdiction in which the person is charged.

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 Posted on May 20, 2014 in Tax Controversy Litigation

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a major guilty plea in line with their goal of curtailing the use of foreign bank accounts by Americans to conceal taxable assets.

Credit Suisse bank pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to aid Americans evade taxes by hiding their wealth in undisclosed Credit Suisse accounts. The guilty plea underscores the vulnerability of parent banks and their subsidiaries, and indicates that all are subject to the United State’s prosecution efforts in this regard. Credit Suisse, as part of yesterday’s guilty plea, admitted to helping Americans conceal their wealth from the United States government, and will pay $2.6 Billion in fines and penalties to the Federal and New York State governments. The plea saves Credit Suisse from potentially losing its license to operate in the United States, a power Federal regulators may exercise over violator banks. The criminal charges were also prompted as a result of actions taken by the bank to impede the federal investigation, including failing to comply with investigators’ requests for employee interviews, delays in providing requested documents, and destruction of relevant e-mail communications. France’s largest bank, BNP, is expected to enter a similar guilty plea in the next few weeks.

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 Posted on April 23, 2014 in Medical Malpractice

A Kansas jury recently found that a Kansas doctor and pain clinic were guilty of medical malpractice that caused the death of a 40-year-old man, and awarded the Missouri family nearly $3 million.

The medical malpractice suit stems from a series a steroid injections beginning in May 2008. The patient, who suffered chronic lower back pain, visited a Kansas pain clinic in early 2008. In May, one of the physicians who operated the clinic injected medication into the patient’s back. This alleviated his pain for a while, but in December the patient was back in the clinic for a second round of injections. Unfortunately, those injections failed, and the patient returned to the clinic on January 5, 2009. The original treating physician was on vacation, so another operating physician attended to the patient. This physician administered an epidural steroid injection in the patient’s lower back. Soon after, the patient’s pain still had not subsided, and a lump started to appear where the needle had gone in. The medical malpractice suit states that the patient complained that the lump hurt but was told by the clinic that minor swelling at the injection site was normal.

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 Posted on April 15, 2014 in Medical Malpractice

Tragically, a medical condition or injury sometimes results in death for too many individuals, particularly young children. This is a loss that no parent should have to experience in his or her lifetime. Often, there is nothing that can be done to prevent these tragedies. However, there are occasional incidents in which a child’s death could have been prevented, but wasn’t. In these situations, errors by medical professionals and hospitals are crucial and sometimes may be the bases for medical malpractice lawsuits. Medical malpractice suits function to hold these professionals and hospitals accountable when they fail to meet the appropriate standards of care and injury or death results. Medical malpractice can take many forms, including a misdiagnosis. Recently, this prompted a medical malpractice lawsuit by a Dallas couple whose six-year-old boy died after treatment by an emergency physician at a Texas medical center. A copy of the article regarding the recent medical malpractice case can be found here.

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 Posted on April 08, 2014 in Medical Malpractice

Some of the most common medical malpractice lawsuits involve a provider’s failure to diagnose a patient properly. When patients seek medical help, they trust that their healthcare providers will perform the necessary steps to determine what is causing their symptoms and ultimately provide the proper treatment. Needless to say, patients expect to receive the highest level of care. In this same vein, doctors are expected, and even trained, to make the proper decisions when the time comes to make a diagnosis or recommend the appropriate treatment.

Unfortunately, misdiagnoses happen all too often. A misdiagnosis can lead a patient down the wrong treatment plan or without any treatment plan at all. Failing to properly diagnose a patient prevents doctors and medical staff from providing the proper treatment, which often can lead to further injury or sometimes even death.

In 2009, a healthy and active middle-aged woman in Texas underwent a mastectomy to remove a benign breast tumor. Just one month later, she was given the horrific news that every woman fears: she had stage IV breast cancer. Once she was able to accept this devastating news, she began to give away her belongings, start treatment, and arrange for own home care. The treatment endured for seven long months. As a result of the stress and difficulties associated with the diagnosis and treatment, the patient developed anxiety. In 2011, the patient visited a medical center for treatment of her anxiety. Doctors performed several tests and scans that routinely are administered to cancer patients experiencing anxiety. At that time, they suspected that something was wrong. Subsequent testing at another medical center later confirmed those suspicions: the patient’s previous cancer diagnosis was wrong. The tests revealed that the patient had been cancer-free since her mastectomy earlier in 2009. Fortunately for the patient, the original doctor who made the diagnosis read her PET/CT scan incorrectly.

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 Posted on April 04, 2014 in Criminal Defense

In Baltimore County, the Police are increasingly resorting to investigating and ultimately arresting citizens who simply go to gun ranges such as Continental Arms in Timonium or Freestate in Middle River. As an criminal defense attorney with 20 years of experience, I have represented dozens of people who have been charged in these case, probably more than any other lawyer in Baltimore. These investigations and prosecutions are deeply troubling to me as they are nothing more than a shameless attempt to build up the police statistics for firearms prosecutions and confiscations.

The overwhelming majority of the citizens involved in these cases have only misdemeanor convictions that, more often than not, date back a decade or longer. These folks are hard working, law abiding citizens who generally speaking have no idea that they are in violation of the law by going to a gun range and renting a gun to take target practice. Most believe that if their prior records cause any prohibition at all, it is only on ownership of weapons, not simply shooting one in a controlled environment such as a gun range. To make these investigations even more troublesome and, in my view, counterproductive to the stated goal of law enforcement which is to protect and serve the community, the police utilize "ruse interviews" (everyone else just calls it plain old lying) to entrap their targets into incriminating themselves. It is difficult to believe that the police don’t understand what a corrosive impact the use of scorched earth tactics such as these have on their relationship with the community they purport to serve. I was recently contacted by a Baltimore County couple that were the target of one of these investigations. I think it is a particularly egregious case. Here are the facts:

The target of the investigation is a gentleman in his early 50’s. The police became aware of his existence when they summonsed the records of shooters who had gone to the Continental Gun Range for a month late last year. For those who don’t know how this works, whenever someone goes into a gun range, the employees make a copy of the shooter’s driver’s license. They keep this along with a copy of a standard form that everyone has to execute. One of the questions on this forms asks if the shooter has ever been convicted of an offense that carries a penalty of more that 2 years in jail.
The target in this case had a few misdemeanor drug possession charges in the early 1980’s, 30 years ago! He had never spent a day in jail and in any event believed, as many people do, that because his priors were misdemeanors, that they carried a penalty of less than a year. He also believed that because these incidents occurred 30 years ago, that they were basically off his record at this point. Unfortunately for him he was incorrect in both of these assumptions. In Maryland, possession of a controlled dangerous substance carries 4 years in jail unless it is marijuana in which case it carries a year. So each time he went there with his wife to shoot, he checked the "no" box in response to this question and went ahead and shot.
Armed with a copy of the form my client executed along with his dust covered misdemeanor record from the Rick Springfield era, the police responded to their home unannounced and conducted their "ruse interview". Instead of telling them the real reason that they were, they lied and said that they were investigating a theft that had occurred at Continental one day that they were there and asked for their cooperation. They were more than willing to do so of course and incriminated themselves in the process which is exactly what they police intended. Needless to say, they were stunned to find out that they had been lied to and now feel like they can no longer trust the police.
This seems to me like a bad tradeoff for the police. By conducting this "ruse interview" they turn two people (and probably everyone that they tell about it) from people who were demonstrably willing to help the police into people who are now distrustful of the police. And all they get in exchange is a stat building arrest that in no way furthers their mission which is to protect the community. The irony of the situation is that had the police simply told them the truth they both said (as has most everyone I have ever represented in one of these cases has said) that they would have admitted that they shot there because they honestly didn’t believe that they had done anything wrong.
And the icing on the cake is that when the police came back to arrest them, they came in platoon strength! Roughly a dozen police officers in 4 or 5 cars descended upon their home ensuring that their presence was known to the entire neighborhood. They totally traumatized this family of 6 including the target’s wife who is trying to raise 4 children while suffering from MS. Even setting aside what the police did to these people, does anyone think this massive expenditure of time and resources is appropriate to arrest two 50 somethings for target practice? I think not; in fact I think the police who were involved in this should be ashamed of themselves.

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