What is the name of your state? Florida
I have been living in Florida for the past 14 months, and my fiancee & I had plans to return to Mass. on Wed. June 6. We had a vehicle that we were looking to get rid of. We had a couple friends that on Wed. May 30, we went to see if they wanted to buy it from us. Our friends were not home from work when we arrived, we called them, and they asked us to wait.
While waiting we remembered another man in the neighborhood who had expressed possible interest the week before. We went to his home together and knocked on the door. He was not home. We returned to our friend home and waited.
We went back to that guys house about an hour later to knock again. I noticed that the screen on his porch door, which was deadlocked from the outside, was wripped. We waited several minutes for an answer and decided to go do some other errands and return later. I, out of frustration of waiting around with no results, placed both hands on the metal frame of the window of the door where the screen was wripped and leaned on the door. As I was pushing off to leave the door buckled and broke. It caused me to fall, injuring my hand. My fiancee came to my aide and we decided we should stick around until he returns to explain what happened and offer money to replace the door.
At that time, we did not realize that a neighbor had witnessed this and assumed we were attempting to break in. Neither one of us entered the porch nor was anything on the porch disturbed. The neighbor who witnessed this has a felony record herself and we had a dispute with her in the past. She feels we owe her some money for letting us stay at her home for a few days prior, however we babysat her kids and provided her with food and gas as a tradeoff.
Allegedly, her 7 yr old son saw us at the door as it broke and ran to tell his mom that we were trying to break into the home, that we had "kicked the door down". She allegedly looked out the window and saw us walking away from the residence and called 911.
About 20 min later 5 sherrif appeared and questioned us regarding this. We explained what happened. They left.
About an hour later, they came back and arrested both of us for burgalry of an unoccupied dwelling (felony) and criminal mischeif (misdemeanor) due to speaking with the owner of the house and expaining that his friend & neighbor 's son had seen us leaving the property and suspected us of trying to illegally enter.
We were interviewed by a detective and placed in county jail.
I have since been bonded out, however my fiancee remains on a much higher bond due to having a prior arrest about a year ago in which the charges were dropped for lack of evidence against him.
It has now been a week and neither of us has even been assigned a public defender. I have 3 children and a job in MA that I am suppose to be back to at this time. My fiancee is racking up costs for being detained in jail, and we have yet to be able to discuss this with a public defender. The state atty. has 45 days to either drop charges or pursue.
We do not know what the owner of the residence has told authorities. We do know he is good friends with the woman who called the police, who claims we owe her money. Its a 7 year olds perception against us. Nothing was missing from the residence, no fingerprints were found at the residence other than the outside of the porch door.
My fiancee and I are both recovering alcoholics/drug addicts (over 2 years) and apparently the owner of the residence has been known to sell marijuana. So the police felt they had probable cause to believe we were attempting to steal money or drugs.
We're trying to begin a new, sober life together and this just sucks! I don't know what to do, where to turn. I don't have the money to bond out my fiancee or for a private atty. I'm totally stuck. I have never been arrested before. I've never even had a speeding ticket and I'm almost 36 years old. Please help!!! Someone told me to look into a writ of Habeas Corpus???? for my fiancee??? Would that be advised to pursue? Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you
I have been living in Florida for the past 14 months, and my fiancee & I had plans to return to Mass. on Wed. June 6. We had a vehicle that we were looking to get rid of. We had a couple friends that on Wed. May 30, we went to see if they wanted to buy it from us. Our friends were not home from work when we arrived, we called them, and they asked us to wait.
While waiting we remembered another man in the neighborhood who had expressed possible interest the week before. We went to his home together and knocked on the door. He was not home. We returned to our friend home and waited.
We went back to that guys house about an hour later to knock again. I noticed that the screen on his porch door, which was deadlocked from the outside, was wripped. We waited several minutes for an answer and decided to go do some other errands and return later. I, out of frustration of waiting around with no results, placed both hands on the metal frame of the window of the door where the screen was wripped and leaned on the door. As I was pushing off to leave the door buckled and broke. It caused me to fall, injuring my hand. My fiancee came to my aide and we decided we should stick around until he returns to explain what happened and offer money to replace the door.
At that time, we did not realize that a neighbor had witnessed this and assumed we were attempting to break in. Neither one of us entered the porch nor was anything on the porch disturbed. The neighbor who witnessed this has a felony record herself and we had a dispute with her in the past. She feels we owe her some money for letting us stay at her home for a few days prior, however we babysat her kids and provided her with food and gas as a tradeoff.
Allegedly, her 7 yr old son saw us at the door as it broke and ran to tell his mom that we were trying to break into the home, that we had "kicked the door down". She allegedly looked out the window and saw us walking away from the residence and called 911.
About 20 min later 5 sherrif appeared and questioned us regarding this. We explained what happened. They left.
About an hour later, they came back and arrested both of us for burgalry of an unoccupied dwelling (felony) and criminal mischeif (misdemeanor) due to speaking with the owner of the house and expaining that his friend & neighbor 's son had seen us leaving the property and suspected us of trying to illegally enter.
We were interviewed by a detective and placed in county jail.
I have since been bonded out, however my fiancee remains on a much higher bond due to having a prior arrest about a year ago in which the charges were dropped for lack of evidence against him.
It has now been a week and neither of us has even been assigned a public defender. I have 3 children and a job in MA that I am suppose to be back to at this time. My fiancee is racking up costs for being detained in jail, and we have yet to be able to discuss this with a public defender. The state atty. has 45 days to either drop charges or pursue.
We do not know what the owner of the residence has told authorities. We do know he is good friends with the woman who called the police, who claims we owe her money. Its a 7 year olds perception against us. Nothing was missing from the residence, no fingerprints were found at the residence other than the outside of the porch door.
My fiancee and I are both recovering alcoholics/drug addicts (over 2 years) and apparently the owner of the residence has been known to sell marijuana. So the police felt they had probable cause to believe we were attempting to steal money or drugs.
We're trying to begin a new, sober life together and this just sucks! I don't know what to do, where to turn. I don't have the money to bond out my fiancee or for a private atty. I'm totally stuck. I have never been arrested before. I've never even had a speeding ticket and I'm almost 36 years old. Please help!!! Someone told me to look into a writ of Habeas Corpus???? for my fiancee??? Would that be advised to pursue? Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you
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