Jacksonville Criminal Lawyer Blog

Three Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida women were recently arrested for the crime of prescription fraud according to www.Firstcoastnews.com. The three Jacksonville women are alleged to have obtained popular prescription drugs such as Oxycontin, Hydrocodone and Xanax worth over $50,000 illegally. According to a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office report, the women allegedly used the insurance information of others and forged doctors' prescriptions to obtain the drugs from CVS Pharmacy. Due to the large quantity of the prescription drugs, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office officials believed that the prescription drugs were obtained for resale, rather than use.

As discussed previously on this Jacksonville Criminal Lawyer Blog, abuse of prescription drugs is becoming increasingly popular along with corresponding arrests for the crimes of prescription fraud and possession of illegal prescription drugs. This dangerous trend has become particularly more popular among kids.

Illegal use of prescription drugs, such as Oxycontin, in Florida has had serious effects. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement , through the first half of 2007, the drugs that caused the most deaths to Florida residents were prescription drugs. The Florida death toll from prescription drugs has risen since 2001. However, Florida is one of fifteen states that does not have a system in place to try to track the disbursement of prescription drugs. In addition to what was alleged in this Jacksonville, Florida case, one common way people obtain large quantities of illegal prescription drugs is by what is referred to as "doctor shopping." This involves taking a prescription to various doctors who are not aware that the person already obtained the prescription drug previously from a separate doctor. Many states have a system in place to monitor when a person submits a prescription and obtains the drugs, but Florida currently does not.

The Florida law prohibiting prescription fraud can be located here. (Florida Statutes § 893.13). It is a third degree felony crime.

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Posted In: Drug Crimes

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Drunk driving in Jacksonville may now result in a relatively new device being installed in your car to detect your breath alcohol content before your car will start. If you have been arrested and then convicted for driving under the influence (DUI) in Jacksonville or anywhere else in Florida, you may be required to have an Ignition Interlock Device installed in your vehicle. An Ignition Interlock Device will prevent the vehicle from starting if the driver provides a breath sample with an alcohol content over 0.05. The devices are also equipped with retest capability for random testing while the vehicle is running. The results of the device testing is available via web-based reporting 24/7.

After a DUI conviction in Florida, a person may be required to have the Ignition Interlock Device installed if his or her driving privileges are reinstated pursuant to a permanent or restricted license or a limited driver's license for work/business purposes. The driver's license will be designated with a "P" restriction indicating that that the Ignition Interlock Device is required.

Those people convicted of DUI in Florida who are eligible to have their driver's license reinstated but are required to have the Ignition Interlock Device installed must pay for the device. The costs for the device are listed here on the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles website. If the person is unable to afford the cost of the device, he or she may attempt to have the fine associated with the DUI conviction reduced to help pay for the device.

Florida DUI law provides that a person convicted of DUI for the first time will only have to have the device installed if required by the court. However, if the defendant's blood or breath alcohol level was 0.20 or higher or if a minor was in the vehicle during that first DUI, the device is required for at least 6 months. For a second DUI conviction, the device is required for at least one year or at least two years if the blood or breath alcohol content was 0.20 or greater or a minor was in the vehicle during the DUI. For a third DUI conviction, the device is required for at least two years.

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US-Cert and the United States Copyright Office have published information about the crime of copyright infringement and how to avoid committing and being prosecuted for that crime. The article can be located here.

Downloading music or movies without authorization and stealing software are obvious examples of copyright infringement crimes. However, this article along with the www.SecureFlorida.org website can help people identify and avoid other less obvious instances of copyright infringement.

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A recent Florida criminal case involving the search of a student in whose wallet marijuana was found illustrates the standard for properly searching a student for drugs at school. According to the Florida appellate court, the search of the student was found to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution because the teacher did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that the student was in possession of the marijuana or other drugs.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. In schools, the standard for searching a student is more liberal, i.e. a teacher or school official can search a student if he or she has a "reasonable suspicion" that the student is in possession of marijuana, cocaine or any other illegal drug. That reasonable suspicion cannot just be a hunch or intuition. A search of the student for illegal drugs must be based upon specific and articulable facts that reasonably warrant the search. In other words, the teacher or school official must be able to point to actual facts and logical inferences that reasonably led him or her to believe that the student was in possession of illegal drugs before the student was searched.

In this recent Florida criminal case, a student walked into a classroom where he did not belong. The teacher asked the unauthorized student to leave and escorted him out of the classroom. When the teacher walked back into the classroom, she smelled an odor of marijuana for the first time. She then took the student to the principal's office where his wallet was searched. A bag of marijuana was found inside.

The Florida appellate court found that there was not a sufficient legal basis to search the student for marijuana. While the teacher did smell marijuana, she could not articulate any facts that reasonably led her to believe that the smell of marijuana was coming from that student, as opposed to another student or other sources. As a result, the search of the student was held to be illegal, and the marijuana could not be used against the student in court. Of course, the student was still subject to punishment from the school for having marijuana in school, but he was not subject to prosecution for the drug crime of possession of marijuana because the teacher's search did not meet the reasonable suspicion standard.

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Posted In: Drug Crimes , Search and Seizure

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Scott Weiland, who is is famous to some as the lead singer of the rock group Stone Temple Pilots, was recently sentenced to 192 hours in jail after his second arrest for DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) in California. According to the police report, Weiland was involved in a one vehicle accident. When the police arrived, they noted that Weiland was showing "signs of impairment" although the police report does not specify what those signs of impairment were. The police report goes on to say that Weiland was given field sobriety tests, which he failed, although the report also does not specify what tests were given and how he failed. Weiland was then taken to jail where he refused the blood or urine tests that were offered by the police.

In Jacksonville, and everywhere else in Florida, Weiland's DUI conviction (or drunk driving or DWI as the crime is often called) would subject him to, among other penalties, a fine of $500 - $1,000, jail time from 10 days to 9 months, probation of up to one year and a license suspension of 5 years if his second DUI occurred within 5 years of his first DUI conviction. If the second DUI conviction was more than 5 years from his first DUI conviction, the minimum jail time is one day and the license suspension period is 180 days to one year, among other penalties.

Also in Florida, refusing to submit to a blood or urine test as the police report indicates Weiland did subjects the person to an automatic license suspension of one year for a first refusal and 18 months for a second (or more) refusal of a blood or urine test.

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The Florida Legislature is considering a law (Senate Bill 1086) that would allow illegal immigrants serving prison sentences to be deported under certain circumstances.

According to the proposed Florida law, prison inmates in Florida who have been convicted of a crime, have served at least half of their prison sentence and agree to be deported to their country of origin would be eligible for deportation. This proposed law would not result in any forced deportations of illegal immigrants. According to a recent article, there are approximately 5,000 illegal immigrants in Florida prisons.

The purpose of the Florida law is more for saving money and reducing overcrowding in prisons as opposed to addressing issues directly related to illegal immigrants. A similar law saved approximately $13 million in Arizona in 2007.

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In a recent Jacksonville, (Duval County) Florida criminal case, a conviction for possession of cocaine was thrown out because the court found that the police officer's stop of the defendant's vehicle was illegal in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

In this Jacksonville, Florida criminal case, a police officer stopped the defendant for driving a car with a cracked windshield. The police officer justified his stop on the idea that he could stop a vehicle with an obvious equipment malfunction. The police officer then searched the car and found cocaine inside. However, the appellate court found that the police officer did not have the right to stop the defendant's car just because the car had a cracked windshield. Because the stop of the defendant's car was not legal, the cocaine that was found in the car could not be used as evidence against the defendant in court and the conviction for possession of cocaine was thrown out.

The criminal defense lawyer successfully argued that while there is a law that requires each car to have a windshield, there is no law that deals with cracked windshields. The law does not authorize the police to stop any vehicle that has any equipment malfunction. If it did, the police could stop vehicles for dents, broken antennas and other minor malfunctions. The court noted that the law does not contemplate such broad reasons to stop a vehicle.

So can a police officer pull a car over for an equipment malfunction, like a cracked windshield? Sometimes. There is a law that prohibits a driver from operating a vehicle that is in such an unsafe condition that it is a danger to any person or property. Therefore, an officer can pull a car over if he or she observes a vehicle with equipment, or in a condition, that is unsafe. An example might be a windshield that is cracked or broken to the extent that it is difficult for the driver to see through it.

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Posted In: Drug Crimes , Search and Seizure

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A Jacksonville, Florida owner of an assisted living facility (Adams Adult Family Care Home) was arrested last week for allegedly committing medicaid fraud. According to Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, the Jacksonville assisted living facility owner submitted false claims in excess of $20,000 to the Florida Medicaid program and was arrested by the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. The assisted living facility owner is suspected of running the facility without the proper license. More specifically, the facility was only licensed to care for four adult residents, but the facility owner is suspected of having more than four residents, including child residents, and charging the Florida Medicaid program for 19 months of reimbursements for the unauthorized residents.

According to the State Medicaid Fraud Control Units most recent annual report covering fiscal year 2006 issued by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the various state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCU) were created to investigate and prosecute Medicaid fraud and patient abuse and neglect. In 2006, the various MFCU's recovered more than $1.1 billion and obtained 1,226 criminal convictions pursuant to their investigations and prosecutions.

Medicaid is a federal program, but Florida, like each other state, is authorized to administer the program and set certain standards in terms of eligibility and reimbursements. Generally, medical providers and assisted living facilities that are enrolled in the Medicaid program can provide care and treatment to individuals and make a claim for reimbursement to the Florida Medicaid program. Medicaid fraud is often characterized by a situation where a provider enrolled in the Florida Medicaid program will submit a false claim for reimbursement for: services that were not actually rendered to residents or patients, services that were not necessary or not authorized under the program, medical equipment not provided to the patient or resident or amounts greater than the appropriate value of the service.

The owner of the Adams Adult Family Care Home is charged with a third degree felony and is subject to a maximum prison sentence of five years, a $5,000 fine and restitution of the amount found to have been fraudulently taken from the Medicaid program.

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According to the Florida Attorney General's Office, Duval County (Jacksonville) was one of five counties with the highest rates of domestic violence fatalities in Florida in 2006. As a result, the Florida Attorney General's Office is expanding a pilot program to deal with the increasing domestic violence fatality crime rates. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, reports of domestic violence-related manslaughter or murder were up 17% from 2006 to 2007 in Florida.

The program is called INVEST (Intimate Violence Enhanced Services Team), and it offers prevention and protection services for people considered to be at high risk of suffering a fatal domestic violence attack in Duval County and the other high risk counties. Participants in the program, including the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and the Hubbard House, attempt to identify those at high risk of being victims of a domestic violence fatality and make contact with the victim and the suspected offender to prevent the violence from occurring. The program is actually derived from a similar program created in Jacksonville, Florida where, despite the continued high risk, domestic homicides are down an average of 46% in the seven years since the Jacksonville program has been in place.

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Drug dogs (also referred to as canines or K-9's) are used in Jacksonville by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Department and all over Florida. They are commonly used to walk around a vehicle that has been stopped by police to determine if the odor of marijuana, cocaine or other drugs is present. If the drug dog alerts to the odor of drugs in the vehicle (or some other container), the police will typically take that as a legal basis to conduct a search of the vehicle that complies with the Fourth Amendment search and seizure requirements.

However, the drug dog's signal alone may not be a sufficient basis to search a vehicle. Take for example a situation where the police stopped a vehicle and asked the occupants some basic questions to which the police officer felt he received suspicious responses. The police officer then walked his drug dog around the vehicle, and the drug dog alerted to the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle. The police officer then searched the vehicle. He did not find drugs, but he found evidence related to a recent armed robbery and both occupants of the vehicle were arrested. Was this proper?

The Florida court deciding the case said no. At the motion to suppress hearing, the police officer testified that he and the drug dog were certified and well-trained and the drug dog had been very reliable in detecting drugs in the past. However, the police officer testified that he did keep specific records as to the drug dog's reliability and denied that the drug dog ever gave a false alert explaining that if the drug dog alerted and no drugs were found, that must mean that drugs had recently been present and the odor remained.

The court said this was not enough to search the vehicle. The state prosecutor did not satisfy their burden by merely showing that the drug dog was certified and trained Other factors that must be considered are: the exact type of training the dog received, the standards for selecting the drug dog, the standards for the training and certification and perhaps most importantly, the drug dog's track record in detecting the presence of drugs.

The court also rejected the idea that when a drug dog alerts and drugs are not found, it is not a false alert because it means drugs had recently been there. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. The fact that a drug dog with a much keener sense of smell than a human can pick up some odor of drugs from a vehicle, without more, is not a sufficient basis to overcome the strong protections against unreasonable searches and seizures which is afforded by the Fourth Amendment.

It is, however, important to note that different courts if different parts of Florida are not in agreement regarding this issue, and the Florida Supreme Court may decide to resolve the conflicts in the future.

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Two nurses at Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center in Duval County, Florida were arrested for allegedly using their position at the hospital to acquire prescription drugs to be sold illegally on the street, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. One of the nurses was charged with multiple counts of fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance and one count of trafficking hydromorphine. The other nurse was charged with two counts of fraudulently obtaining controlled substances.

Apparently, Shands-Jacksonville, like other hospitals has a mechanism in place whereby the medical staff must provide a thumbprint before he or she dispenses prescription drugs. Shands-Jacksonville monitors the frequency with which the medical staff acquires those drugs. according to the JSO arrest report, one of the nurses was dispensing 30% more of the drugs than the average nurse.

Of course, dispensing certain prescription drugs raises more suspicion than others. Certain drugs like Hydrocodone, Oxycontin, Xanax, Vicodin, Percocet and Morphine are more commonly obtained illegally as they have become more popular among drug users, particularly kids, and can be highly addictive. According to a report from The Council of State Governments, over 6 million people aged 12 and older used prescription drugs illegally as of 2002. A more recent report cited by the American Medical News indicated that as of 2005, nearly 7 million Americans abused prescription drugs. Common ways for the prescription drugs to be obtained were: going to different doctors for multiple prescriptions (which got Rush Limbaugh into trouble), ordering drugs through internet pharmacies, theft, forging prescriptions and medical professional illegally prescribing the drugs.

In order to help the medical industry keep track of these prescription drugs and who is getting them, Congress enacted the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act in 2005 which authorizes a monitoring system, but the program has not been properly funded by the government.

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Federal government prosecutors have filed their sentencing memorandum with the federal court which asks the judge to sentence Wesley Snipes to the maximum prison sentence for his recent criminal convictions for failing to file his tax returns, according to a Reuters news release. In 2006, the federal government indicted Snipes on multiple counts including tax fraud, conspiracy and failing to file tax returns. A copy of the indictment can be found here.

Earlier this year, after hearing the evidence in his federal criminal trial in Ocala, Florida (which is about 100 miles southwest of Jacksonville, Florida), a jury found Wesley Snipes guilty of three counts of failing to file tax returns for the years 1999 - 2001. Each of the three counts on which Snipes was convicted, one for each year, is a conviction for a federal misdemeanor crime. That jury also found Snipes not guilty of the felony counts, which were tax fraud and conspiracy counts.

The federal crimes on which Snipes was convicted each carry a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison and associated fines. As a result of the three convictions, Snipes is facing a maximum sentence of 36 months in prison. That is exactly what the federal government is requesting along with a $5 million fine for failing to pay his taxes for those three years. According to the sentencing memorandum, the tax loss from Snipes' failure to pay taxes for three years was over $7 million and the maximum fine would be over $14 million. The sentencing memorandum also asks the judge to hold Snipes in jail pending his appeal. Some defendants, after they are convicted, are permitted to remain out of prison on bond until their appeal is heard. Snipes also may likely face a civil action from the IRS to force him to pay millions of dollars in overdue taxes.

During the trial, lawyers for Snipes argued for unorthodox interpretations of the tax code that would support his contention that he did not have to pay the taxes the government claimed he owed, that the IRS was not a legitimate agency that had authority to force Snipes to pay taxes and that Snipes was an innocent victim of bad advice from his advisers. While some of those arguments were presumably effective in beating the felony counts, that, along with Snipes' celebrity status, also likely explains why the government is attempting to make an example out of Snipes to deter others from engaging in similar conduct and using similar justifications for failing to pay federal taxes. In fact, the prosecutors told the judge in the sentencing memorandum, "If ever a tax offender was deserving of being held accountable to the maximum extent for his criminal wrongdoing, Snipes is that defendant."

Snipes' federal sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 24.

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Posted In: Federal Crimes

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