I am happy to announce that the judge in Oei’s case dropped the charges completely, saying the picture was not explicit enough to be child pornography. And just last week, the school board voted to cover all of Oei’s legal bills, according to the Washington Post’s Loudon Extra. Those bills had grown to $167,621 in less than a year. The case also resulted in a job suspension for Oei, though he returned to work earlier this year.

As a South Florida child pornography possession criminal defense attorney, I’m happy to see that justice has been done in this case. Oei was following a supervisor’s orders and trying to maintain school discipline when he uploaded the photo. While that would technically be possession of child pornography (if the photo had been child pornography, which the judge said it was not), it’s a serious stretch of the imagination to equate those actions with the kind of child pornography possession that the law was intended to punish. If Oei had been convicted, he would have faced prison time, sex offender status, the end of his career and life as a convicted felon -- all for doing his job. You don’t have to be a Miami-Dade possession of child pornography criminal defense lawyer to call that a miscarriage of justice.

When I wrote about this case before, I mentioned that Oei had also faced charges for failing to notify authorities about “child abuse.” That charge was dropped, perhaps because there was no real child abuse in this case -- the article doesn’t say whether the girl took her own photo and voluntarily sent it, but that’s usually the case with sexting. However, that charge concerned me as a Fort Lauderdale child pornography criminal defense attorney, because it suggested that school administrators were under pressure to get authorities involved in sexting cases right away -- and nothing could be worse for the kids involved.

Most sexting cases involve teenagers making bad decisions -- not sexual assault, child abuse or another crime. Some consequences are appropriate, but the growing trend toward criminal prosecution of teenagers involved in voluntary sexual photos could ruin the lives of kids who made one bad decision. That’s why this South Florida child pornography criminal defense lawyer prefers that school administrators handle most cases of voluntary sexting, without involving authorities -- and without being prosecuted for simply doing their jobs.

This was actually the second trial against Thomas-Rasset. Her first trial which awarded the RIAA $222,000, was thrown out because the judge believed he’d made an error with jury instructions. Court testimony in the new case said an online security company hired by the RIAA, MediaSentry, downloaded songs from Thomas-Rasset’s computer, although the RIAA could not prove that the songs were illegally downloaded by anyone else, or that she was the person who had made the songs available. In fact, she testified in court that her children or ex-husband may have shared the songs. Nonetheless, the jury decided she should pay $80,000 per song, nearly $2 million, to major music companies owned by Warner Music Group, Sony, EMI and Vivendi Universal.

As a Fort Lauderdale cyber crime criminal defense attorney, I can’t help but notice that the penalty Thomas-Rasset is facing is hugely disproportionate to her alleged actions. My work produces intellectual property, so I’m sympathetic to the idea that intellectual property should be paid for -- but $80,000 is an absurd price for an individual song. The size of the judgment could also be seen as a deterrent, but given that Thomas-Rasset is a single mother of four who works for a Native American tribal government, it’s unlikely that she’ll actually be able to pay it. In fact, media reports have speculated that it might push her into bankruptcy. Not only could this make the judgment useless as a deterrent, it might backfire by creating public sympathy for her financial plight.

Thomas-Rasset was sued, not criminally prosecuted -- but in Florida, online copyright violations can actually be prosecuted as a crime. Florida’s Offenses Against Intellectual Property statute makes it a felony carrying up to five years in prison to alter or destroy information from a computer system without permission. It also prohibits theft of trade secrets or confidential information from a computer system. Downloading songs probably wouldn’t be covered by the statute -- but many other innocent activities could be. As a South Florida cyber crime criminal defense lawyer, I believe the statute was written to criminalize malicious hacking -- but it could be interpreted as penalizing harmless behavior like clearing old data out of databases.

The law is still catching up to how people really use the Internet, and unfortunately, Thomas-Rasset’s case is a good example of how we sometimes fall short. My job as a Miami-Dade cyber crime criminal defense lawyer is to help people who are trapped by the law’s shortfalls -- or by prosecutors who don’t understand technology -- avoid the life-changing consequences of a serious criminal conviction. File-sharers like Thomas-Rasset may have broken the law, but their crimes are not so serious that they deserve to have their finances ruined.

Stelmack’s problems started in 2007, when he was accused of hugging some fifth-grade girls inappropriately. He was suspended for an internal investigation and asked not to contact anyone at the school. A few days later, he called to ask an administrator to check on something in his office. Investigators searched the office and turned up a briefcase in a locked closet with the doctored pictures. The Tribune reported that both children were from Florida; the Ledger of Lakeland, Florida reported that one child was at the school where Stelmack worked, and another was from a New York school where he had been principal before. He lost his job and was prosecuted for possession of child pornography.

Let me start by saying that the facts of this case are disturbing, and the jury’s decision may have been an understandable reaction to seeing upsetting images. However, as a South Florida child pornography criminal defense attorney, I do not believe that the facts reported would make Stelmack guilty of a Florida child pornography crime. Under state law, “child pornography” is clearly defined as “any image depicting a minor engaged in sexual conduct.” If these articles are correct, the images at issue do not depict a minor engaged in sexual conduct; they (reportedly) depict an adult engaged in sexual conduct, with children’s faces cut and pasted into the photo.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled on this very issue, in 2002’s Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002). In that case, the court said that parts of the federal Child Pornography Prevention Act were unconstitutionally broad because they outlawed sexually explicit material showing someone that “appears to be a minor,” and material that “conveys the impression” of minors involved in sexual activity. As the court pointed out, these are broad enough to cover works with actual literary or social value, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as constitutionally protected pornography featuring over-18 actors touted as “barely legal.”

Furthermore, the court’s original rationale for outlawing child pornography doesn’t apply to images like Stelmack’s. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), excluded child pornography from the First Amendment protection enjoyed by legal pornography, because child pornography is always manufactured by illegal use of children in a sexual performance. Under that rationale, the material found in Stelmack’s briefcase should not be illegal -- no children were used or harmed when it was made. As a Miami-Dade child pornography criminal defense lawyer, I believe convicting Stelmack violated both the letter and the spirit of the law.

It’s also worth noting that Stelmack faces life-altering penalties for this conviction. He has already lost his job and probably his career in education, not to mention marital and social consequences. To these, the court has added a Florida felony conviction, which means prison time for most of the rest of his life; loss of many basic civil rights when he gets out; and trouble finding a new job. Even worse, he faces lifelong status as a sex offender, meaning restrictions on where he can live, onerous registration and re-registration requirements and a poisonous stigma. Those are more reasons why, as a Fort Lauderdale child pornography criminal defense lawyer, I believe he should not have been convicted, and I wish him well in any appeal.

Retail store employees have to deal with a lot from the general public these days: incessant questions about sales, customers who constantly throw merchandise around the store, and the every-so-often angry customer. More and more frequently, customers have been causing scenes in retail stores when returning merchandise because they do not have the credit card they originally did the transaction on. (You typically cannot return merchandise to retail stores without the original form of payment.) “Why don’t you keep that stuff on record?” retorts the irritated customer. Unbeknownst to customers, stores have drastically upped their security measures, including protecting credit card information, to better serve the public. What these customers have yet to understand is that these measures are put into place so that their credit card numbers are not stolen; if every store kept their 16 digit credit card number on record, don’t you think that would be a bit risky?

The past decade has seen a flurry of crime committed through the internet world, with the advent of online banking, as well as increased online spending. It is difficult to determine how safely guarded your credit information can be when send via websites, and the best you can do when making an online purchase is hope for the best or do your research. Retail stores in malls have similar problems since their information is now transmitted over the internet and their servers. Many stores kept records of credit card numbers on store copies of receipts until recently when this became a liability for the customer. High profile cases wherein someone hacked into stores’ servers became major headlines and many stores did all they could to change their systems in an effort to save their client relations. It thus became important to question which store was safe to shop in. Identity fraud is a common crime to commit in modern society because of the ease with which hackers can maneuver their way into various systems that keep records of your credit and vital information.

Retail stores have attempted to combat this new rise in crime through their new systems which can be somewhat inconvenient to customers, but have made huge attempts in curbing any type of hacking or stealing of information. TJMaxx and related stores made big headlines last August because of the theft of many of their clients’ credit card information from criminals around the world. While this does not appear to affect the credit card in any major way (parent companies cover the cost to VISA and other banks), we have seen results in smaller ways such as the rising of bank costs and related expenses, as well as higher prices in TJMaxx. It is amazing how quickly information can flow across the globe, so that criminals in Ukraine can garner information from sources in the U.S. and simply drain your credit funds. This becomes a difficult crime to combat because of its international sector, as well as a lack of a way to prevent this from happening. Viruses are instilled throughout the internet now so that criminals can easily steal your information from a single website; retail stores are only the beginning of the wave in crime and present an easy opportunity to take credit card numbers.

While the internet presents a large domain with which to control the amount of crime in, retail stores at least can muster up steps to combat these criminals through only displaying the last digits of a credit card. Although this may produce unpleasant customers, it is still good to know that most stores still keep the safety of their customer’s bank accounts in mind.

Guest blogger Kimberly Peterson maintains the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide site. Miami-Dade cyber crime criminal defense attorney David Seltzer represents people accused of credit card fraud, both online and offline. If you or someone you love has been charged with credit card fraud in South Florida, you should contact a South Florida credit card fraud criminal defense lawyer as soon as possible, to minimize the negative effects on your family, your money and your life. To set up a free consultation with David S. Seltzer, you can contact him online or call -866-685-3421 seven days a week and 24 hours a day.

As I have written on the Cyber Crime Lawyer Blog before, Drew was prosecuted under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for violating the terms of service for social networking site MySpace when she and an employee pretended to be teenaged “Josh” in order to make friends with a neighbor girl. The goal was to see what the girl, Megan Meier, was saying about Drew’s own daughter. Meier killed herself at the age of 13 after “Josh” stopped flirting and cut off communications, saying the world would be a better place without her. She had a history of depression.

No prosecutor in their home state of Missouri found a way to bring criminal charges against Drew, but federal prosecutors in Los Angeles charged her with unauthorized access to a computer network for violating the MySpace terms of service. Critics of the prosecution call this a stretch or even an abuse of the law. Ironically, the Star reported, Missouri’s harassment law -- updated in response to the case -- still probably wouldn’t apply to Drew’s actions, since her employee sent the messages. A prosecutor in St. Charles County, Missouri, where the Drew and Meier families lived, compared the case making MySpace the victim to a prosecution of a shooting in which Smith & Wesson was the victim.

As a South Florida cyber crime criminal defense attorney, I agree. Drew’s behavior was certainly unbecoming of a mother in her forties, but violating the terms of service for a Web site is not the same as hacking -- which is what “unauthorized access to a computer network” really is. Millions of people violate terms of service agreements every year; prosecuting most of them as hackers would probably create a public outcry. As Drew’s criminal defense lawyers pointed out, violating a terms of service agreement is not a crime.

However, as a Fort Lauderdale cyber crime defense lawyer, I can agree with confidence that this case has changed the law. At least ten states have passed laws against cyber bullying since the 2006 incident, and a similar federal law has been proposed, although it has come under fire for alleged First Amendment violations. While these statutes have their flaws, they help bring the law in line with the Internet. My Miami cyber crime criminal defense clients deserve laws that accurately take into account both the advances in technology and the way people really use those advances.

The newspaper said Starks was driving through South Beach just after midnight on Sunday when the officer approached his truck. The truck was designed for four people, but according to the article, it had thirteen inside, including a woman on Starks’ lap. The officer waded into bumper-to-bumper traffic and knocked on the driver’s side rear window, but the truck kept moving forward. When the officer knocked again, the truck did stop, allowing the officer to approach. But as he reached the driver’s door, the truck accelerated slightly, hitting the officer in the chest and knocking him into another vehicle.

Because this case involves a pro athlete, it’s attracting a lot of attention from both fans and the media. As a South Florida battery criminal defense attorney, I would like to clear up some of the misconceptions I’ve noticed. For example, the aggravated battery charge. If you’ve never worked in criminal law or been arrested before, you may not realize this, but battery is defined as any intentional, unwanted touching or intentionally causing bodily harm. That’s it. To be charged with battery, you do not need to cause great bodily harm or even hurt the other person. A charge of aggravated battery requires great bodily harm or use of a deadly weapon -- which could include a car.

Furthermore, under Florida law, any battery on a police officer is automatically treated more seriously -- from a second-degree felony to a first-degree felony, in the case of aggravated battery. So, assuming the incident happened as it was reported, the charges against Starks are perfectly legally sound. That said, the penalty for a first-degree felony is up to 30 years in prison, which seems disproportionate to the crime to this Fort Lauderdale battery criminal defense attorney. Judging by the description, Starks made some mistakes, but he may not have even intended to harm the officer. Given that he was apparently driving with someone on his lap, the swerve may not have been intentional -- a prerequisite for a battery charge. That’s just one of the possible avenues of defense I can see from reading the article.

Finally, as a Miami-Dade battery criminal defense lawyer, I’d like to add that high-profile athletes and celebrities should be given the same benefit of the doubt everyone accused of a crime should get -- presumed innocent until proven guilty. Celebrities and the wealthy attract a lot of criticism after an arrest, but when they face the justice system, each one is just an individual -- and just like everyone else, they need the help of a smart criminal defense attorney.

According to the article, the clinic operators are accused of billing Medicare for expensive HIV and cancer-treatment procedures they did not perform. In fact, an FBI investigation found that several “patients” knew nothing about the clinics they were supposed to have visited for the procedures. Another died before the procedure was allegedly performed, and two of the clinics involved did not seem to exist except as post office boxes. Once they received Medicare reimbursements, the Herald said, the conspirators would deposit them at storefront check-cashing businesses and take weekly deliveries of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

As a Miami fraud criminal defense attorney, I was interested in this news because Medicare fraud may be the most common type of fraud against the federal government. And law enforcement says the three counties closest to us -- Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward -- are among the top counties nationwide for Medicare fraud. In fact, the Florida Legislature just passed a law increasing penalties for defrauding the state Medicaid program. And Florida congressmen have been the driving force behind similar efforts to strengthen the federal anti-fraud law that the conspirators in this case have violated. With the economy in bad shape and government agencies looking for ways to trim fat painlessly, South Florida Medicare providers would be well-advised to expect further crackdowns.

As a Fort Lauderdale fraud criminal defense lawyer, I wish regulators well in their efforts to root out genuine fraud, especially organized schemes to defraud like the one described in the Herald. However, I would also be concerned for the patients and doctors who may be caught up in such a crackdown. Medicare fraud schemes frequently take advantage of patients who are elderly, unwell or otherwise vulnerable to exploitation. While there are some “patients” who are part of the schemes, many others are guilty only of trusting too much. And a few doctors may be vulnerable to Medicare fraud charges as well, thanks to a prohibition on “self-referral” and the general complexity of the system.

I absolutely support efforts to root out Medicare fraud -- but not at the expense of justice. Medicare fraud is a felony on both the state and federal levels, carrying up to 30 years in prison and six-figure fines at its most serious. As a South Florida fraud criminal defense attorney, I would not want those penalties levied at defendants who are already victims themselves.

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