I live in Arizona. I am living a nightmare that my family cant wake up front. 3 years ago when my son was barely 17 years old he met someone in a chat room on line who downloaded a zip file to him so he could see girls his own aqe. This zip file started a file share server which is a blind server, you dont know who is putting what on it or taking what off of it. My son had the server on for 3 days and in that period someone had downloaded 6 pictures of childporn. My son deleted the pictures, closed the server and didnt think anything about it. A year later the police show up and ask me about it, they made it sound like they were looking for who had posted the pictures on line and asked if we would mind helping them. I was more than happy to help and told my son to tell them everything that had happened. We thought they were looking for email addresses but actually they could of cared less who had downloaded the pictures They searched my sons computer and found no pictures or anything else but they still confiscated it and a couple of cds that had nothing on them. They said it was just procedure, boy was I wrong. Even thought there were no pictures or anything just because he said it was his server they charged him with 6 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
For those of you not familiar with arizona law, that is a mandatory minimum 60 years to a possible of 144 years in prision with no chance of parole, no probation, and cant be commuted by the govenor. You will die in prison.
We hired a private attorney just in case they followed through on the charges and nearly a year later they did, the attorney received a summons and my son and I went to court on the date. The attorney we hired didn't show up and when my son's case was called and we stood up to approach the bench some guy we had never seen before said he was there to represent my son. The attorney was completely clueless about the case, didnt know that there were no actual victims or anything else. The judge set a $60,000 bail, electronic monitoring and immediately arrested my son on the spot. I managed to convince the judge that there were no actual victims because she wasnt going to let my son even come home after I posted bail and I managed to get the bail reduced to $30,000.
I know this is a long post but I think the history is important on my sons case and I will get to the questions I have here in bit.
We fired the attorney we had but it pretty much cleaned us out financially so we had to switch to a public defender. He started out alright and seem to do the right things, he had my son take 2 polygraph tests which he passed with flying colors and a full phycological exam which the doctor said he was as close to a 0 threat as you can get.
You have to understand my son is probably one of the sweetest and honest kids you could ever meet. After all of this and spending 8 months on electronic monitoring the prosecuting attorney offered my son a plea deal. 5-15 years in prison, life time probation, and register as a sex offender.
As you can guess he didn't find this plea even remotely fair, my son was willing to pay for his mistake but registering as a sex offender makes you sub-human in todays society.
Ok, here comes some questions although at this point it probably won't matter, my son skipped bail because his wonderful attorney told him that if he went to trial that he was risking life in prison and that he probably couldn't win because of his statement to the police saying the computer was his.
The six pictures that they are charging my son with were not in my sons possession, they were mailed to the Chandler police dept from a Det. in NY state. When you read the report they make it sound like these pictures from 2 cd's were taken from son which they weren't. They submitted these 2 cd's to the grand jury in order to get an indictment.
Is there a way to get these thrown out for mis-leading a grand jury?
The next question is my son's attorney filed a motion to determine voluntariness of my son's statement to the police because I told my son to cooperate and talk to them and really didn't give him a chance not to talk to the police. The problem is when we went to the hearing the prosecutor didn't have any of his crap in order so they didn't argue the motion. And as of this date it stilled hasn't been argued or ruled on. Is there any way
to make the court hear this arguement and rule on it even though my son isn't present.
The next question is since my son skipped bond we have been getting harrased by the police and the bail bond company. The police came beating on my door at 02:30 in the morning when my wife was alone and I was at work. This is great because we have two serial killers running around phoenix and nothing makes a woman feel safer than having someone beat on your door in the middle of the night. Secondly the bond company put wanted posters all the way around our block and at my wifes work, and probably at mine as well although I didn't see them. These posters had my sons picture and our home address on them as well as the charges he's facing. Is this legal? How would they justify it if someone came to my home and mistook my younger son who looks alot like his brother and hurt him.
I apologize again for the length of this post but any kind of advice would be so greatly appreciated. My son doesnt deserve what they are doing to him and neither does my family. Thanx
For those of you not familiar with arizona law, that is a mandatory minimum 60 years to a possible of 144 years in prision with no chance of parole, no probation, and cant be commuted by the govenor. You will die in prison.
We hired a private attorney just in case they followed through on the charges and nearly a year later they did, the attorney received a summons and my son and I went to court on the date. The attorney we hired didn't show up and when my son's case was called and we stood up to approach the bench some guy we had never seen before said he was there to represent my son. The attorney was completely clueless about the case, didnt know that there were no actual victims or anything else. The judge set a $60,000 bail, electronic monitoring and immediately arrested my son on the spot. I managed to convince the judge that there were no actual victims because she wasnt going to let my son even come home after I posted bail and I managed to get the bail reduced to $30,000.
I know this is a long post but I think the history is important on my sons case and I will get to the questions I have here in bit.
We fired the attorney we had but it pretty much cleaned us out financially so we had to switch to a public defender. He started out alright and seem to do the right things, he had my son take 2 polygraph tests which he passed with flying colors and a full phycological exam which the doctor said he was as close to a 0 threat as you can get.
You have to understand my son is probably one of the sweetest and honest kids you could ever meet. After all of this and spending 8 months on electronic monitoring the prosecuting attorney offered my son a plea deal. 5-15 years in prison, life time probation, and register as a sex offender.
As you can guess he didn't find this plea even remotely fair, my son was willing to pay for his mistake but registering as a sex offender makes you sub-human in todays society.
Ok, here comes some questions although at this point it probably won't matter, my son skipped bail because his wonderful attorney told him that if he went to trial that he was risking life in prison and that he probably couldn't win because of his statement to the police saying the computer was his.
The six pictures that they are charging my son with were not in my sons possession, they were mailed to the Chandler police dept from a Det. in NY state. When you read the report they make it sound like these pictures from 2 cd's were taken from son which they weren't. They submitted these 2 cd's to the grand jury in order to get an indictment.
Is there a way to get these thrown out for mis-leading a grand jury?
The next question is my son's attorney filed a motion to determine voluntariness of my son's statement to the police because I told my son to cooperate and talk to them and really didn't give him a chance not to talk to the police. The problem is when we went to the hearing the prosecutor didn't have any of his crap in order so they didn't argue the motion. And as of this date it stilled hasn't been argued or ruled on. Is there any way
to make the court hear this arguement and rule on it even though my son isn't present.
The next question is since my son skipped bond we have been getting harrased by the police and the bail bond company. The police came beating on my door at 02:30 in the morning when my wife was alone and I was at work. This is great because we have two serial killers running around phoenix and nothing makes a woman feel safer than having someone beat on your door in the middle of the night. Secondly the bond company put wanted posters all the way around our block and at my wifes work, and probably at mine as well although I didn't see them. These posters had my sons picture and our home address on them as well as the charges he's facing. Is this legal? How would they justify it if someone came to my home and mistook my younger son who looks alot like his brother and hurt him.
I apologize again for the length of this post but any kind of advice would be so greatly appreciated. My son doesnt deserve what they are doing to him and neither does my family. Thanx