Trying to drop charges

[Danaus]

Ohio Due to a miscommunication in informing a previously-resident nephew that he was no longer welcome in our home, I filed misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass against him when I believed he had subsequently entered my home and set off our alarm system without permission. I filed to drop the charges later but the nephew had already been arrested for a probation violation revealed by my reporting this incident. The local court will not drop the charges unless he appears. He has been harassing us to drop the charges and threatening various forms of legal mayhem. Do I have any liability in this case? What penalties can he ask for me?

 

[TigerD]

Ohio Due to a miscommunication in informing a previously-resident nephew that he was no longer welcome in our home, I filed misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass against him when I believed he had subsequently entered my home and set off our alarm system without permission. I filed to drop the charges later but the nephew had already been arrested for a probation violation revealed by my reporting this incident. The local court will not drop the charges unless he appears. He has been harassing us to drop the charges and threatening various forms of legal mayhem. Do I have any liability in this case? What penalties can he ask for me?

1. Unless you are the prosecuting attorney, you didn't file charges. You may have filed a police report, but not charges.
2. The decision to dismiss the case or not is not yours. That also is the job of the prosecuting attorney.
3. If you advise the prosecuting attorney of your nephew's harassment and threats, you may rest assured they will stop. Of course, he may also find additional charges for witness tampering.

TD

 

[quincy]

Ohio Due to a miscommunication in informing a previously-resident nephew that he was no longer welcome in our home, I filed misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass against him when I believed he had subsequently entered my home and set off our alarm system without permission. I filed to drop the charges later but the nephew had already been arrested for a probation violation revealed by my reporting this incident. The local court will not drop the charges unless he appears. He has been harassing us to drop the charges and threatening various forms of legal mayhem. Do I have any liability in this case? What penalties can he ask for me?

Your nephew was arrested for a probation violation based on trespassing on your property, or had he previously violated his probation in some other way?

You do not file criminal trespass charges, by the way, nor are you the one who drops criminal charges once they are filed.

What you did was to make a report to the police, reporting your nephew as a trespasser on your property. Your nephew was arrested. The prosecutor would have been the one who filed charges, based on the facts of the arrest. If your nephew was charged with criminal trespass, it will be up to the prosecutor to decide whether to pursue these charges.

You could potentially make it known to the prosecutor that your nephew was not trespassing afterall - that he had been living with you and you failed to tell him he was no longer welcome in your home. That said, telling a "resident" of a home that they are no longer welcome in the home, and then reporting that resident as a trespasser when they enter the home, is not the legal way to evict a resident.

Although I am not sure your nephew is in any position to ask for "penalties," is it the eviction your nephew is thinking of when he speaks of penalties? Or the trespass report?