Cyber Crime Lawyer Blog

As a Miami Criminal and Cyber Crime Defense Attorney, I do what I do to help. A colleague of mine sent me the below video and it reminds us that people in life deserve second chances.

David S. Seltzer is a Miami Cybercrime and Criminal Defense Lawyer who practices throughout the State of Florida, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, in both State and Federal Court. Please call 24/7 for your FREE confidential consultation.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service made big financial news last week when it sued Swiss banking giant UBS AG for allegedly helping 52,000 Americans avoid paying taxes on their foreign accounts. The lawsuit alleges that UBS must show good reasons for not complying with a 2008 court ruling requiring it to turn over information on tens of thousands of Americans’ accounts, which hold nearly $15 billion in assets, according to the Associated Press.

The claim came one day after the Justice Department agreed to defer prosecution of UBS for intentionally and explicitly helping U.S. clients evade taxes, which the bank has acknowledged and an informant formerly employed by UBS may have confirmed. UBS argues that turning over the information would violate Swiss law, although it has already agreed with the Justice Department to turn over a shorter list of clients and pay a fine in exchange for deferred prosecution of the bank itself.

In response, USA Today reported Feb. 19, criminal tax evasion defense attorneys in South Florida and elsewhere are seeing a rush of new clients. According to the article, these clients hope that voluntarily disclosing their foreign bank accounts will help them avoid criminal prosecution for tax evasion. The IRS voluntary disclosure program allows taxpayers to confess and pay the back taxes and steep penalties for failure to report those assets. Without that disclosure, those who are caught face up to five years in federal prison for each count of felony tax evasion.

A tax lawyer interviewed by USA Today told the newspaper that while some of his clients intentionally banked their money overseas to avoid taxes, others simply didn’t realize that they owed taxes. That’s an important distinction, because the federal criminal tax evasion statute requires that attempts to avoid taxes must be “willful.” People who made honest mistakes should not be eligible for prison time -- but they still may need the help of an experienced criminal defense attorney to prove their innocence. As a Miami tax evasion criminal defense lawyer myself, I also help clients negotiate a fair and affordable settlement of back taxes and penalties with the agency.

The U.S. tax code is so notoriously complex that it’s a frequent issue for presidential candidates. Given all of the recent Cabinet nominees with taxation problems, it seems quite realistic that some of the UBS accountholders did not realize that they were failing to pay legitimate taxes. That might be especially true if the bank failed to send them the tax documents that U.S. banks issue every January. No doubt some of these accountholders knew they were evading taxes, but as a Fort Lauderdale tax evasion criminal defense attorney, I hope the disclosures from the IRS lawsuit won’t end up sending people to federal prison for a mistake made in good faith.

In these times of financial hardship to the United States of America, the Federal Government is making tax evasion, tax avoidance, and tax mitigation a top priority. With the announcement that UBS is turning over information relating to those Americans suspected of defrauding the United States Government, criminal prosecution for Tax Evasion is rampant in our courts, and will only increase in the upcoming months. See USA Today Article IRS unlocks UBS vault hiding Americans evading taxes

As a Criminal Tax Defense Attorney, it is extremely important for those who believe they will be investigated to be prepared for the road ahead. My advice to you is to speak to an attorney concerning your rights and your position. It is time to protect your assets and your future. Call today for a free consultation 24/7 and speak directly to an experienced criminal defense tax evasion lawyer.

As a Miami cyber crimes defense attorney, I was interested to see a New York Times article from Saturday about a case of possible cyber bullying right here in South Florida. According to the newspaper, University of Florida freshman Katherine Evans got in trouble last year for “cyber bullying” her English teacher at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. Evans, a former honors student, didn’t like the way the teacher responded when she asked for help, or the rebuke she got for missing class once during a school blood drive. In response, she went to social networking Web site Facebook and wrote a post denouncing the teacher’s “insane antics,” then offered it as “the place to express your feelings of hatred” for the teacher.

Evans took her post down after a few days -- but was called into the principal’s office two months later and suspended for cyber bullying. She is now suing to have the suspension removed from her record, saying she’s concerned about how it could affect her future. Evans’ attorney in the case says her post was protected free speech, but an administrator for the Broward County School District said inviting students to say they hate a teacher crosses a line comparable to verbal threats or assault.

If that’s so, Evans might be vulnerable to criminal harassment or threat charges in Florida. Florida has no law against cyber bullying, but it prohibits threats in verbal or written form, as well as cyber stalking. However, as a Fort Lauderdale cyber crimes defense lawyer, I wonder if the behavior Evans is accused of would actually qualify as cyber bullying.

Generally speaking, cyber bullying laws in other states define cyber bullying as using the Internet or other electronic communications to intentionally inflict emotional harm on someone else. In many cases, it must be done repeatedly or consistently. In short, it’s the same bullying behavior that’s always gone on in schools -- just transferred to the Internet. Indeed, most of these laws rely on school administrators to find and punish the behavior, but a few authorize criminal charges. Missouri, the home of the highly publicized Megan Meier case, makes cyber bullying a felony carrying up to four years in prison.

That’s a high price to pay for a moment of frustration -- much higher than the three-day suspension Evans received. Her Facebook post could clearly have inflicted emotional harm on her teacher -- but in the physical world, it’s unlikely that it would have been interpreted as bullying. As an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union told the newspaper, her comments would have been protected speech, and possibly forgotten about by now, if they had been made in person. It’s not for a South Florida cyber crimes defense attorney to second-guess the actions of school administrators, but I believe that criminal cyber bullying charges would have been inappropriate for this case.

In a recent announcement, Myspace.com removed 90,000 registered sex offenders from its website. What is interesting to me as a Miami Criminal Defense Lawyer, is how many of those individuals removed may have been in violation of their sex offender conditions by being online? And if so, will they be prosecuted for the violation?

Usually sexual crimes involving minors committed in today's world involve restrictions on what individuals can and cannot do. In almost all circumstances I have experienced, internet usage has been severally restricted. If an individual who is a registered sexual offender or predator is on probation and requires the use of a computer to work, their freedom to surf the internet is limited. In most cases the machine is equipped with either a keystroke logger or some other form of monitoring device, which allows probation to supervise and monitor every move. Website access is limited to only those sites that the individual requires for work, once they are approved by the appropriate agency's involved.

I can imagine very few circumstances that would require an individual on sexual offender or predator probation to be using myspace.com or any other comparable social networking site, such as facebook.com. That being said, one thing we as a society need to address is, are all individuals who are forced to register as sex offenders, really sex offenders, in the sense that are they a danger to the community? And how long until the courts attempt to impose a lifelong ban on internet usage by sex offenders or predators?

In my opinion each situation must be visited on a case-by-case basis, only after a careful review and understanding of the underlying facts. Working as a Fort Lauderdale Criminal Defense Attorney, I come across all types of criminal activity and each case must be looked at in a vacuum, as no two cases are alike. Some individuals end up in situations where they are not a danger to the community, and are labeled for the rest of their life.

Case on point, as a Miami Criminal Defense Lawyer, I represent an individual who had consensual intercourse with a minor when he was barely an adult. Unfortunately, he does not qualify under the new Romeo & Juliette laws, and now with a wife and two kids, has nowhere to live since he has been evicted from his home once his landlord learned of his status. Miami Dade County told him to use the MacArthur Causeway as his registered address. Is that what we as a society have become? The city in which he lives does not truly allow sex offenders to live there. However, they are willing to look at each case on a case-by-case basis and if a court of competent jurisdiction makes a finding that the individual is not a danger to the community, then the city will allow him to continue to reside there. Just one of the many reasons why the legislature needs to take another crack at the registration statutes, because sometimes good people get caught in the crossfire.

The Battalion, Texas A&M University's school newspaper, reported Feb. 2 that an associate professor turned himself into the police on charges of possession of child pornography. According to the article, a co-worker contacted the police after noticing that the man had shared files with questionable content on the university's network through iTunes. A police detective told the paper that he did not believe the man meant to share the files. He is charged with seven felony counts of possession of child pornography, each of which is a third-degree felony carrying two to 10 years in prison.

Regardless of whether this man meant to share the files, possession of child pornography is illegal -- if that's what the materials are. However, I'm also interested in the fact that he probably didn't mean to share those files publicly. As a Fort Lauderdale cyber crime criminal lawyer, I've learned that many users don't even realize how easy it is to accidentally expose their data to the world. Many computer programs and even operating systems (like Windows Vista or MacOS X) come with the ability to share files on a local network or the entire Internet. These programs may come with file-sharing already enabled or disabled by default; that decision is up to the software's publisher.

Of course, you have the option to change the default settings -- but not everyone realizes they can or should. If you leave file-sharing on, or share folders without making sure you know what's in them, you may end up allowing your co-workers or family to see materials you would rather keep private. This has implications beyond content that might merely be embarrassing. For example, if you have lists of your clients' names and Social Security numbers on your work computer, you are responsible for keeping that information private. If you don't, it could fall into the hands of identity thieves, with serious consequences for your company and your job.

Being aware of "cyber safety" can also help you avoid being the victim of a crime yourself. You probably know that the Internet is full of viruses and other "malware" that can harm your computer. As I've written here before, a hostile programmer can also write a program that turns your computer into a miniature Internet server -- a host computer. Once this program is on your machine, people who want to escape detection can route their Internet activities through your computer without you noticing. You may not be trafficking in child pornography or illegally transferring stolen money into offshore bank accounts, but to investigators, it will look like you are.

Of course, you'll have a chance to explain the truth and defend yourself -- but usually not until after you've been arrested, detained, imprisoned and humiliated. As a Miami cyber crime criminal attorney, I can promise you that law enforcement does not generally have a sympathetic ear for people they believe are guilty of serious crimes. If you can avoid problems by checking or unchecking a box -- as this man in Texas may have been able to do -- it's worth investigating.