Our client was a high school music teacher and an aspiring professional singer when a student at the school falsely claimed that he had sex with her.
Unfortunately, the police conducted very little investigation and our client was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Shortly following her arrest, she retained our firm to represent her.
When we started interviewing witnesses, we learned from several students at the school, who were never questioned by the police, that the accuser had confided in them that he had lied. We uncovered several possible motives for his false allegation as well as evidence that he was dealing with a great deal of turmoil around the time he made the allegation.
The story told by the student was far from convincing and contained very little detail. He said that our client picked him up and brought him to her house where they had sex. He provided no details about what the house looked like, the layout inside, where in the house they had sex, or any details that would confirm that he had, in fact, been to her house. Meanwhile, our client was adamant that he had never been to her home.
At the time the allegation was made, the police seized the accuser’s cell phone. They examined the phone and made note of several phone and FaceTime calls between the two of them during a one-month period. Our client stated that this was the time that they were rehearsing for the school musical. She was the director of the play and the student was the male lead. The police failed to notice that as of the day of the musical’s final performance, there was not a single phone or FaceTime call between them.
The police also failed to examine the remainder of the kid’s phone. However, we filed a motion to obtain all of the data from the phone which we were eventually able to get the prosecutors to turn over. Once we obtained the cell phone data, we were able to uncover an enormous amount of evidence that the allegation was false. Most notably, we discovered a note written by the student in the Notes app on the phone where he writes, “The whole thing was a lie.”
After spending several months combing through the cell phone data, we were finally able to sit down with the prosecutors and present all of our evidence. It was clear that we had conclusively proven our client’s innocence. Just a short time later, the district attorney’s office agreed to dismiss the case.
With the charges dismissed, our client is now able to go on with her life, with her teaching certificate intact.
Categories | Sexual Assault Cases,