Clearwater Criminal Defense Lawyers

Once you learn that there are criminal charges pending against you in the state of Florida, one of the most critical decisions that you will make is going to be which criminal defense attorney you should retain. This choice is important and it is crucial that you choose a criminal defense attorney who will stand up for your best interests and who has an established track record of positive outcomes and satisfied clients. This decision will make the difference between paying an excessive amount of fees and fines and serving a long period of time locked up behind bars or having your charges reduced or maybe even completely dismissed altogether.

The legal defense team at Musca Law is committed to protecting your liberty and defending your good reputation. Our criminal defense attorneys are sharp and highly trained. If you have been arrested or are the center of a continuing criminal investigation, then you will benefit from our free, no-obligation consultation. Acting fast is going to be essential to the outcome of your case. Call us today!

Criminal Attorneys in Pinellas County

Criminal charges can threaten a person’s job, family stability, liberty, reputation, and financial well-being, but our Navarre criminal defense attorneys with over 150 years of combined experience provide aggressive opposition to the full range of criminal offenses, such as:

• Driving Under the Influence (DUI)
• Boating Under the Influence (BUI)
• DUI Manslaughter 
• Sexual Crimes
• Domestic Violence Injunction 
• Injunctions (Restraining Orders)
• Stalking Injunction
• Sexual Violence Injunction
• Sexual Violence Injunction
• Dating Violence Injunction
• Repeat Violence Injunction
• Domestic Violence
• Child Pornography
• Theft Offenses
• Serious Traffic Offenses
• Drug Offenses
• Violent Crimes
• White Collar Crimes
• Concealed Weapons
• Public Corruption
• Federal Crimes
• Possession of Stolen Property
• Juvenile Crimes
• Probation Violation
• Disorderly Conduct
• Obstruction of Justice
• Expungement

Drug Crimes

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has compiled data that shows that Florida has an average of 115,000 drug-related arrests annually. Most of these arrests deal with lesser drug crimes, such as charges for paraphernalia and charges of possession.

Our Clearwater criminal defense attorneys have defended a variety of clients who have been charged with these same infractions and seen very successful outcomes to these cases. Our attorneys employ a wide number of legal tactics that vary from questioning whether or not a police traffic stop or its consequent search and seizure techniques were unlawful to arguing for more favorable terms in your plea bargain.

The penalty that you will endure for a drug crimes charge is based on a wide variety of conditions that may or may not have been present during the event, like whether a supposed sale really even occurred, the type of drug on record, and the amount of the drug they are claiming you sold. If you have any prior criminal charges on your record, those will also factor into the result of your case. Getting a guilty verdict for a charge of drug trafficking could result in 20 years in state prison, but even a conviction for a much lesser crime has the capacity to alter your life completely. A criminal charge, particularly a felony, will not only negatively influence your economic standing and your personal rights but also the amount of basic life choices that are accessible to you such as higher education, place of employment, and where you are able to live for the rest of your life. At Musca Law, we work hard in an attempt to lessen the negative consequences that these accusations can have on the remainder of your life.

Property and Theft Crimes

Property and theft crimes are some of the more commonly charged crimes in Florida. Our defense attorneys for theft and property crimes at Musca Law are committed to helping our clients in achieving the most beneficial outcome to their case as possible.

The word “theft” covers an entire range of criminal behavior, extending from really trivial to astonishingly severe. Florida law legally defines theft as having taken place when someone intentionally uses, takes, or ventures to use or take the personal property of somebody else with the purpose of permanently relieving the legal owner of the property or acquiring that property for the benefit of a person to whom it does not belong.

In addition to the basic theft law which includes petty theft, grand theft, larceny, and embezzlement, a variety of additional laws cover additional crimes that are also theft-related. For example credit card fraud, burglary, carjacking, robbery, shoplifting, and retail theft. The weight of a theft charge in the state of Florida will be conditional on the cost of the stolen property, the sort of property that was stolen, how many people took part in the theft and whether or not they had any prior criminal convictions. Fines will be increased and the terms of imprisonment might be increased if the theft included obtaining the stolen property with the use of a gun, with a gang, or by force.

According to the laws, a theft charge must include highly incriminating evidence in order to establish guilt. An established property and theft crimes defense lawyer from Clearwater will be able to assist you in fighting these accusations in a beneficial way.

White Collar Crimes

According to Florida law, white collar crimes are crimes that include the “commission or conspiracy to commit any felony theft or fraud.” White collar crimes took their name from the fact that they are most usually connected with people who are in corporate jobs. These crimes are normally a lot more complicated than your ordinary everyday robbery.

White collar crimes also tend to include a much larger sum of money than a traditional home or store robbery. White collar crimes are illegal actions such as forgery, counterfeiting, racketeering, passing bad checks, taking advantage of the disabled or the elderly, offenses involving financial transactions, insurance fraud, embezzlement, extortion, and pyramid schemes. They often require the aid of high-end technology, and law enforcement and prosecutors hit these kinds of cases very eagerly.

It is imperative to bear in mind that just because no one was influenced by the threat of bodily harm or actual bodily harm does not indicate that you will not have to spend any time in prison. The bulk of white-collar crime offenders are facing anywhere from five to 30 years in Florida state prison. In certain cases, it could actually be even longer. Sentencing guidelines fluctuate greatly and will mostly rely on the class of crime that you committed, how much money was stolen, the number of victims affected, and whether or not you have a prior criminal history. Not being declared guilty is our main object in cases involving white-collar crimes. In the event that there is a  strong amount of evidence against you, this could mean setting up a plea agreement for a lessening of your criminal charges and therefore a lessening of your penalties as well. You will need to have a defense attorney in Clearwater who is skilled in handling these types of extremely complex and time-consuming cases, and who has previously worked with the other people who will be involved in your case, such as law enforcement, judges, and prosecutors. Our 150 years of collective experience at Musca Law have demonstrated repeated, positive outcomes for our clients, making Musca Law and its team of criminal defense attorneys a commonly relied on and trusted law firm in criminal defense in the state of Florida.

Sex Crimes

Being accused of a sex crime is undoubtedly one of the most disparaging things that can happen to you. Understandably, as the accused you are anxious to clear your good name, however, the repercussions of speaking with law enforcement without a sex crimes defense attorney present can be very damaging to your case in any circumstances.

Even though the American justice system is supposed to believe in your innocence until you are proven guilty, this is almost never the case with sex crimes allegations hanging over your head. The alleged victims of the supposed sex crime are afforded believability, more often than not, while prosecuting attorneys and police detectives go after these cases in a very aggressive manner. Sex crime charges include being accused of rape, sex crimes against a minor, neglecting to report that you are a convicted sex offender, prostitution, harassment/ stalking, the distribution or ownership of pornographic material featuring children, pimping, lewd or lascivious battery, and human trafficking.

Florida sex crimes attorneys from Musca Law understand that even when you are up against a pile of convincing evidence, legal options are always available to you to help alleviate the hardship. Our primary goal is always the dismissal of all your charges. Failing that, we will strive diligently towards the dismissal of specific offenses or do our best to achieve a decreased sentence. It is essential that your sex crime charges are reduced to the least possible offense under Florida law because not only will that keep you from being legally required to register as a sex offender or a sexual predator, but it would also prevent you from being subject to the Jimmy Ryce Act,  where you must go before a panel of people who assess those regarded as sexually violent and decide if they are likely to commit further sex crimes.

Our sex crimes criminal defense attorneys at our Clearwater office will aggressively and skillfully protect all of our clients from the unseemly allegations of sexually based crimes. Offenders in Florida sex crimes cases need to have a qualified and highly determined defense attorney in their corner at all times until the matter has been resolved.

DUI Lawyers in Pinellas County, Florida 

Annual reports handed down by The Florida Law Enforcement Department record roughly 32,000 arrests take place each year of people who are driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. It is important to remember that an arrest will not automatically lead to your conviction for the crime. With the aid of an experienced criminal lawyer in Clearwater, you will be likely to avoid the harshest of these outcomes, possibly even dodging a conviction altogether.

Florida state law forbids both of the following:

• “Driving under the influence of alcoholic beverages, any chemical substance or any controlled substance to the extent one’s normal faculties are impaired”
• “Driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 or more grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood or 0.08 grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath”

Scientific analysis to determine someone’s blood alcohol level is normally accomplished by the use of either a breathalyzer test or a taking a sample of their blood. Both of these methods have their individual checkered pasts of statutory and technological issues. Moreover, what qualifies as “impairment” can be subjective, especially in the event that there isn’t any physical data to support the drunk driving allegations. This allows plenty of wiggle room for the law to be challenged where a charge of DUI is involved, in addition to the possibility of unlawful police stops and illegal search/seizure.

DUI crimes pertaining to death and injury as the result of a drunk driving accident are particularly pressing. They carry mandatory time in state prison. On top of that, if you make the decision to abandon the site of an accident fatality, even if your level of intoxication cannot be established, you will certainly face a minimum of a four-year compulsory prison sentence just as if you had committed DUI vehicular manslaughter.

If you have been charged with a criminal offense in the Clearwater County area, you are going to need an experienced Florida criminal defense attorney working tirelessly on your behalf. At Musca Law, we have those attorneys. Call us today for a free, no-obligation confidential legal consultation. The criminal defense attorneys here at Musca Law in Clearwater are able to fully prepare you for the difficulties that you have ahead of you and help you to realize the possible outcomes of your specific situation.

During this free consultation, we will begin to build a defensive strategy for you. We will create one that is focused on getting your charges dropped or if it looks like that won’t be doable, working our hardest to get your charges reduced to more minor criminal charges. Your criminal defense attorney will also be responsible for explaining to you any mitigating and/or aggravating factors that we become aware of while we are diligently working on your case. If it starts to look as though a guilty verdict is unavoidable, then we will work with the prosecutors to obtain a plea agreement that will reduce the potential penalties that you are facing. Go ahead and give us a call at  (888) 484-5057 as soon as possible.

PAY HERE CALL 24/7 888.484.5057 TAP TO CALL NOW