We got Jennifer’s aggravated battery on a police officer charge dismissed. Instead of Jennifer looking at a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, Rossen Law Firm is working hard to finalize an expungement of her record.
Jennifer has a PhD, and was scared that something like this would ruin her reputation and career. She was also worried about going to prison, especially when the entire situation could have been avoided with some thoughtful restraint from the police officers.
Jennifer works extremely long hours in a medical research lab. Because of this, she needs to find unusual times to work out. Jennifer had recently moved into a new apartment complex in Hollywood. After getting home from work one night, she went to the apartment’s gym just before 1 a.m.
The security officer in the complex saw her, and told her that she couldn’t go to the gym because it was closed. Jennifer argued back, saying this is the same time that she always works out, and the gym is open. Jennifer swiped her key card, it unlocked the gym door and she went inside to work out, as usual.
Without her knowledge, the guard called the police to report her for trespassing.
The cops arrived on the scene and started knocking on the door, but Jennifer had her earbuds in. Since it was at 1 a.m. – dark outside, but lights on in the gym – Jennifer could only see a shadowy male figure outside the gym. Jennifer tried to mouth that she could not hear the men, and was motioning and pointing to her earbuds. When Jennifer eventually realized that they were cops, she opened the door and went outside.
Jennifer explained the situation, saying she needed to work out and the gym was open. Overwhelmed by what was going on, and feeling intimidated by two male cops, she called her brother to come over and help. Jennifer’s brother drove over and told her to get in the car and drive home, which she did in order to deescalate the situation.
As they backed up the car, one of the police officers grabbed her car door and was struck. The police then followed Jennifer and arrested her for aggravated battery on a police officer.
We got a call from Jennifer’s brother at 7 a.m. the next morning, and he hired Rossen Law Firm right away. We put them in touch with a bail bondsman, and made sure to go to the first appearance court with Jennifer’s brother. We negotiated a reasonable bond condition to get her out of jail as soon as we could. We began working on the case right away and subpoenaed videos from the apartment complex.
The police report was very poorly written, making it seem like Jennifer was dangerous and completely disregarded the police. The videos showed that it was difficult for Jennifer to see that the men were cops, and proved that she was pointing to her headphones. It also showed a woman, alone in the middle of the night; with dark, shadowy figures banging on the glass, which we were able to use as proof that Jennifer was scared during the entire situation. Lastly, by showing the video to the prosecutor, we were able to prove the police officer created the problem by purposefully jumping into the way of the moving car door.
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