falsely accused

[ryandye]

What is the name of your state? OHIO

My friend and I came across the court house website one night and typed our names in for fun. I had nothing, he on the other hand had a theft charge brought against him. we did some research and found it was by JC Penny, a store he doesn't shop at ( only thift stores for him) I then called JC Penny and found that 2 people were walking out the door with merchandise and that they were only able to caught one of them. The one they caught was some girl named Stephanie Williams, and said that my friend was the other person. They say they have video tape as well. My friends swears he has never stolen anything in his life let only from this store, in fact he doesn't even know where this store is at. We had some one in one of our graduateing classes (he is only 20) with the same name as the girl.
my first question is what is hte easist way to get ht charges dropped?
My second question is after they are dropped can we sue her or the company for false accustion (sp) and if so how much?

 

[stunna2681]

Im not a really smart person when it comes to law but if they told you they had a tape of them then what does your friend have to worry about? I mean if he didn't do it then obviously it won't be him on the tape..maybe the girl lied and came up with a name, but they don't know your friend so when they see him and then see the guy on the tape then it will be clear that they got the wrong guy...

 

[ryandye]

that is what we are planning on doing is seeing the tape. We agree if you can clearly see that it is not him on the tape than the charges will be dropped. But we don't know the quailty of the tape itself.

 

[stunna2681]

i would do that for sure, if you can clearly see that it is not your friend..well nothing to worry about, but if the tape's quality is bad and you can't tell who it is then there's your reasonable doubt, like i said before though, the closest i become to being an expert about this stuff is that i live in ohio too, but this just seems like common sense, and if he didn't do it, really don't worry about it because there will be other easy ways to prove it wasn't him..did they say the day that the shoplifting occured? How long ago was it, and if your being charged with shoplifting, how come you found out by looking on a court website? No court papers in the mail or police phone calls?

 

[stunna2681]

i would do that for sure, if you can clearly see that it is not your friend..well nothing to worry about, but if the tape's quality is bad and you can't tell who it is then there's your reasonable doubt, like i said before though, the closest i become to being an expert about this stuff is that i live in ohio too, but this just seems like common sense, and if he didn't do it, really don't worry about it because there will be other easy ways to prove it wasn't him..did they say the day that the shoplifting occured? How long ago was it, and if your being charged with shoplifting, how come you found out by looking on a court website? No court papers in the mail or police phone calls?

 

[ryandye]

no expert either but studing law so that is why I am helping him.

Yes it will give reasonable doubt but the girl was never charged in return for the name and most likely testimony. yes it did give the date, but he can't remember where he was or what he was doing on that day. The weirdest part is that we came across the website the same day teh charges were filed against him. The summons is in hte mail, according to the courts. he is worried because he has a suspened sentence for an OMVI charge from two years ago. It was just odd that we came across the website the same day the cahrges were filed. The crime took place on 10/2/02

 

[hgrego1015]

This is from a law enforcement standpoint.

Why don't you find out what Law enforcement agency handled the case and go to records department and obtain a copy of the report?
There has to be some type of probable cause for law enforcement to file the charge. Their probable cause could be that the girl identified her friend as you and they let her look at the video. Something is screwy here. You need to look at the tape. If it is not the friend then contact the police agency to have your name taken out of the report and cleared as a suspect.