Nephew's Legal Problem

[karenor]

Our nephew got out of prison one year ago and has been doing excellent. He had been in prison for identity theft and served four years. About three months ago he went to the local DMV to get his license back. After a few minutes the clerk informed our nephew that he would not be getting his id card back. Unbeknownst to our nephew the clerk had phoned the police because there was a notation on his driving file that said he was never to be issued a drivers license. About one block from the DMV a police car passed our nephew and did a uturn and came back to our nephew who was walking to a friends. The police asked him to identify himself and he did. The police produced the id card and gave it back to our nephew. A police officer asked if he could search our nephew's backpack. Having nothing to hide our nephew complied with the police request and the police looked into his backpack. Our nephew was shocked when he was immediately placed under arrest. The police had three items they had taken from our nephew's backpack that they felt were not right. One item was mail addressed to our neighbor. The second item was a blank check belonging to our niece’s's boyfriend and the final item was an old piece of paper from a wallet type check book. The police claimed the piece of paper was an id. Our nephew looked at it and saw that it was some paper from his old id theft days. An older niece’s had kept clothes and belongings for our nephew while he was in jail. One box contained a leather wallet-checkbook. Our nephew had been using the plastic type supplied by the bank and had tossed the leather item into his backpack so that at a later time he could get it set up for current use. It is this item that contained what the police said was a forged instrument and later upgraded to identity theft. The blank check was in our nephew's possession as he intended to get it back to his sister. She had come to visit us and had brought along a few checks to pay bills for her live-in boyfriend. The mail from our neighbors was in our nephew's possession because our mail boxes are in the country and right next to each other in a group of six mail boxes. Our nephew said that he had thrown the one piece of mail into his bag to return it to the mail box of the neighbor next time he went to the mail boxes. Our nephew got a court appointed lawyer. The lawyer says that things look bad for our nephew because of his previous prison time and previous record. Yes he did wrong before, but this current situation is not a crime. A few weeks after being arrested at the DMV we took our nephew to another DMV closer to our home. This time he was taking his drivers test and the police were phoned again! These police were from a different town. The police this time let our nephew finish the test and then explained about the notation on our nephew's driving file that said he should never get a drivers license. The policeman had the DMV clerk make two separate phone calls and then had the DMV clerk remove the item from our nephew's file. How different it was handled at this DMV! We told this policeman what had happened to our nephew before. The policeman didn't have an answer for that question except to say that the police in the other jurisdiction were notorious for jostling felons. We realize our nephew's past history precedes him and he must learn to live with the searches and hassle. That is fine, but now he has a legal situation where he could indeed be returned to prison. Each item is easily explained away, but also each item looks suspicious when scrutinized by the district attorney. Our son's court appointed attorney says that this item should go to trial. The attorney does not want our nephew to have a trial in front of a jury, but just in front of the judge. Wouldn't a jury be better? Please believe me this young man has done nothing wrong. The smudged piece of paper that the district attorney is calling a forged id is nothing that could be used on the street and is four years old! Oregon has a get tough stance on id theft. Shouldn't this kid get a plea bargain? In Oregon it is an automatic 13 months for id theft. Our nephew would be getting about 26 months because of a an upward departure due to his previous prison conviction. Believe me if there was any hint that this young man had done anything wrong or was trying to do something wrong we would simply stand back and let the chips fall where they may. We feel it is a case of overzealous cops and now the district attorney must feel that they have to do something with this case. The district attorney can not most likely believe that our nephew has changed his spots. He has. Any thoughts you have on this situation would be appreciated. There is a pretrial conference next Wednesday, June 30th. Thank you so much in advance for even looking this over. Please feel free to contact me by email if you need additional information or clarification.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

Our nephew got out of prison one year ago and has been doing excellent. He had been in prison for identity theft and served four years.

My response:

His name wouldn't be "Larry", would it?

IAAL

 

[karenor]

To:IAAL

IAAL:

No his name is not Larry. Why would you ask such a question? I have read through this forum and was simply seeking some assistance. This forum strikes me as being informative. Members appear to not only be knowledgeable, but helpful to each other. I have noticed that your responses to requests for help tend to be rather trite and quite hurtful. Your response to my request for assistance and input regarding our nephew's problem therefore seems quite odd and rude.

Any other forum members that would like to respond to our request for assistance and input regarding our nephew's problem would be most appreciated.

This is a great forum!

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

IAAL:

No his name is not Larry. Why would you ask such a question? I have read through this forum and was simply seeking some assistance. This forum strikes me as being informative. Members appear to not only be knowledgeable, but helpful to each other. You response to my request for assistance and input therefore seems odd.

My response:

Have you seen the Citibank "Identity Theft" commercials? In particular, you should pay close attention to the one entitled, "Babe Magnet".

The commercials are all outstanding. The newest one, with the female oriental dentist talking as "Larry", a middle aged guy at the singles week in Tijuana ("freaky tiki"), is getting new hair plugs and a wax job "on the old chassis", and all at the expense of the dentist's stolen identity.

At the end, "Larry" says: "Slow down ladies. There's plenty of Larry to go around", and then "Larry" laughs at the end, because he's stolen all of the dentist's money. Hilarious!

The way you write about your nephew, it sounded like his name was
"Larry". This was just as your nephew did before he was caught!

IAAL

 

[Shay-Pari'e]

Our nephew got out of prison one year ago and has been doing excellent. He had been in prison for identity theft and served four years. About three months ago he went to the local DMV to get his license back. After a few minutes the clerk informed our nephew that he would not be getting his id card back. Unbeknownst to our nephew the clerk had phoned the police because there was a notation on his driving file that said he was never to be issued a drivers license. About one block from the DMV a police car passed our nephew and did a uturn and came back to our nephew who was walking to a friends. The police asked him to identify himself and he did. The police produced the id card and gave it back to our nephew. A police officer asked if he could search our nephew's backpack. Having nothing to hide our nephew complied with the police request and the police looked into his backpack. Our nephew was shocked when he was immediately placed under arrest. The police had three items they had taken from our nephew's backpack that they felt were not right. One item was mail addressed to our neighbor. The second item was a blank check belonging to our niece’s's boyfriend and the final item was an old piece of paper from a wallet type check book. The police claimed the piece of paper was an id. Our nephew looked at it and saw that it was some paper from his old id theft days. An older niece’s had kept clothes and belongings for our nephew while he was in jail. One box contained a leather wallet-checkbook. Our nephew had been using the plastic type supplied by the bank and had tossed the leather item into his backpack so that at a later time he could get it set up for current use. It is this item that contained what the police said was a forged instrument and later upgraded to identity theft. The blank check was in our nephew's possession as he intended to get it back to his sister. She had come to visit us and had brought along a few checks to pay bills for her live-in boyfriend. The mail from our neighbors was in our nephew's possession because our mail boxes are in the country and right next to each other in a group of six mail boxes. Our nephew said that he had thrown the one piece of mail into his bag to return it to the mail box of the neighbor next time he went to the mail boxes. Our nephew got a court appointed lawyer. The lawyer says that things look bad for our nephew because of his previous prison time and previous record. Yes he did wrong before, but this current situation is not a crime. A few weeks after being arrested at the DMV we took our nephew to another DMV closer to our home. This time he was taking his drivers test and the police were phoned again! These police were from a different town. The police this time let our nephew finish the test and then explained about the notation on our nephew's driving file that said he should never get a drivers license. The policeman had the DMV clerk make two separate phone calls and then had the DMV clerk remove the item from our nephew's file. How different it was handled at this DMV! We told this policeman what had happened to our nephew before. The policeman didn't have an answer for that question except to say that the police in the other jurisdiction were notorious for jostling felons. We realize our nephew's past history precedes him and he must learn to live with the searches and hassle. That is fine, but now he has a legal situation where he could indeed be returned to prison. Each item is easily explained away, but also each item looks suspicious when scrutinized by the district attorney. Our son's court appointed attorney says that this item should go to trial. The attorney does not want our nephew to have a trial in front of a jury, but just in front of the judge. Wouldn't a jury be better? Please believe me this young man has done nothing wrong. The smudged piece of paper that the district attorney is calling a forged id is nothing that could be used on the street and is four years old! Oregon has a get tough stance on id theft. Shouldn't this kid get a plea bargain? In Oregon it is an automatic 13 months for id theft. Our nephew would be getting about 26 months because of a an upward departure due to his previous prison conviction. Believe me if there was any hint that this young man had done anything wrong or was trying to do something wrong we would simply stand back and let the chips fall where they may. We feel it is a case of overzealous cops and now the district attorney must feel that they have to do something with this case. The district attorney can not most likely believe that our nephew has changed his spots. He has. Any thoughts you have on this situation would be appreciated. There is a pretrial conference next Wednesday, June 30th. Thank you so much in advance for even looking this over. Please feel free to contact me by email if you need additional information or clarification.

I read your very long post, and I am slapping myself for doing so. I am speechless.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

I read your very long post, and I am slapping myself for doing so. I am speechless.

My response:

Can I spank you, instead?

Yeah, this idiot comes here talking about her "Angelic" felonious nephew, who was illegally attempting to continue his criminal actions by trying to obtain a driver's license, and then when he's caught with the same "Identity Theft" stuff in his knapsack from FOUR YEARS AGO, wants us to coddle her by agreeing that the police were not justified.

Lady, he's a FELON - - subject to search at ANY time, even WITHOUT "cause". But, in this case, the police had "cause" because he was in the middle of committing an unlawful act at the DMV!

What a Dufus.

IAAL