The Mere Presence Defense Your “mere presence” when a crime is being committed, or your association with people involved in criminal activity, does not necessarily mean you are guilty of a crime, and depending on the facts it may be used as a defense to any charged offenses. It is important that your lawyer investigate and review the facts of your case to determine if the mere presence defense may apply in your situation. When federal agents raid a location where they think criminal activity is occurring, they usually round up everyone present. Then they look through all the documents
Archive | Federal Criminal Law RSS feed for this section
Federal Crime of the Week – Video Voyeurism
As technology invades our lives, so do ways to commit crimes with all this new technology. Anyone can go online or to Best Buy and Radio Shack and purchase equipment that would only have been available to James Bond several years ago, and it is very easy to get in trouble with it, especially if you use it to spy on other people against their will. Most states – including Mississippi – have laws making “video voyeurism” illegal. Video voyeurism is the filming or photographing of people without their knowledge or consent. Perhaps the most famous incident of video voyeurism lately happened to
Federal Crime of the Week – Failure to Report Child Abuse
It is a violation of federal law to fail to report child abuse, if you are a member of certain professions that come into contact with children frequently, and you work on federal land or in a federally operated or contracted facility. Violations can result in fines, or imprisonment for up to one year, or both. What professions are required to report if they suspect that a child has suffered an incident of child abuse? Physicians, dentists, medical residents or interns, hospital personnel and administrators, nurses, health care practitioners, chiropractors, osteopaths, pharmacists, optometrists, podiatrists, emergency medical technicians, ambulance drivers, undertakers, coroners, medical
Federal Crime of the Week – Money Laundering
Money laundering is the act of hiding or disguising the source or destination of illegally-obtained funds so that they are difficult to trace. Money is laundered so that the profits of theft, drug sales, or other illegal activity will appear to come from a legitimate source. While money laundering is often thought of as more related to drug crimes, frequently money laudering is used in business related schemes and white collar crime. For example, money laundering charges may be associated with illegal funds obtained through securities fraud, mortgage fraud, bribery, business fraud, and other financial crimes. What are the elements of money laudering? The
Federal Crime of the Week – Embezzlement and theft from Indian tribal organizations
Mississippi was once home to at least eight major Native American tribes. Sparing you from an extended history lesson, most of these cultures were forced out of Mississippi in the late nineteenth century, and although the tribes are not extinct, most of them survive only in reservations in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. There is only one federally-recognized Indian tribe left in Mississippi today, and of course that tribe is the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. The Choctaw reservation in Mississippi consists of approximately 35,000 acres scattered throughout central and eastern Mississippi, and the Mississippi Choctaw population approaches 10,000 people. Stealing from a recognized Indian
