Police and prosecutors around the country routinely seize and forfeit cars, boats, money, computers, guns and homes that were “used in, or facilitated, the criminal activity charged.” While many cases involve significant crimes and the forfeitures are justified, too often the person is charged with fairly low-level drug sales and their car is seized if it was used to transport the drugs during the sales. The federal and state governments argue that forfeitures are simply part of the cost of the criminal’s conduct and work as a separate fine on the illegal activity. These fines and forfeitures are often used to supplement local and state budgets, including those of the very agencies that seized and forfeited the property.

The problem is that these forfeitures may be grossly excessive to the criminal activity charged. A case now before the U.S. Supreme Court involves low-level drug sales to support the person’s own drug habit and the seizure of his $42,000 Land Rover Discovery. In Timbs v. Indiana, the defendant pled to one count of dealing and one other count. He was sentenced to a year of home detention, five years of probation, and $1,200 in fines and court costs. In a separate civil forfeiture proceeding, the State sought to forfeit his expensive Land Rover as it was used in the commission of the crime. The trial and appellate courts held that the forfeiture was excessive, disproportionate to even the maximum fine of $10,000 under the drug statute. The Indiana Supreme Court, however, reversed and permitted the forfeiture. The U.S. Supreme Court will now decide whether the excessive fines clause in the Bill of Rights applies to the states.

While this decision will ultimately come down to constitutional interpretation, the everyday implications are far reaching. Cars are a huge expense and something that many people work long and hard to purchase, both as necessary transportation and the pleasure of owning a nice, reliable car. Every day throughout New Jersey and elsewhere, local and state law enforcement seize cars they allege were used in or facilitated the criminal activity – whether that consists of relatively minor drug sales, transportation of stolen property or other crimes involving the “use” of the car. The person charged may be admitted into a pretrial diversion program or receive probation and a minor fine, and yet, the government may still proceed to forfeit their car civilly in rem, or as part of the criminal sentence. That forfeiture may be grossly disproportionate to the underlying criminal charges and used as leverage to get the better plea deal in the criminal case.

After battling with county prosecutors’ offices for the information, the ACLU in New Jersey compiled five months of data, from January through May 2016, and found that police departments in New Jersey seized $5.5 million in cash in 1,860 cases over that time period, roughly $368,000 per day, along with 234 cars and, in one case, a house. Once police officers seized the suspects’ money, it was rare for them to see it again. Only 50 cases in the data were even contested by the suspects.

In a number of cases, the government may negotiate an amount of money to be paid for the return of the car. They may negotiate an amount of money for the return of the vehicle, or items seized, allegedly to cover the costs of the forfeiture, or as some additional penalty. When the person is faced with additional legal costs to defend against the forfeiture, often in a civil proceeding where the state’s burden of proof is less than in a criminal case, they often decide to “cut their losses” and settle for a lesser dollar amount. As one can easily surmise, these types of actions can and do lead to abuse and misuse of forfeiture to fund the seizing agency and the local and county budgets.

Experienced criminal defense counsel is an absolute must for these types of seizures and forfeitures. Forfeitures can be justified under the law, or they can be grossly disproportionate to the crimes charged and misused by the prosecution.

Robert Stahl, and his firm, Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers aggressively defend individuals charged with complex federal and state crimes. Founder Robert G. Stahl is recognized as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the NY/NJ area for his skills, knowledge and success. To contact the firm, call 908.301.9001 for the NJ office and 212.755.3300 for the NYC office, or email Mr. Stahl at rgs@sgdefenselaw.com.

In the past several years, the federal government has focused investigative and enforcement resources on pharmacies that compound drugs, and the marketers, doctors and pharmacists involved. Criminal and civil actions have been brought for violations based on statutes prohibiting kickbacks, fraud and false claims.

A compounded drug is one that is supposed to be tailored to a particular patient’s needs. These compounds are legitimately prescribed and used by very young or older patients that have difficulty swallowing pills, patients that cannot tolerate dyes used in pills or patients with certain allergies. Most are topical creams for pain or scars, or specialized vitamins. While these compounded drugs are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they are subject to regulation and enforcement actions by a variety of state and federal agencies.

The scope of the problem has been growing rapidly. The government claims that from 2013 to 2015, $2 billion in fraud was committed against one government program alone, TRICARE, the provider of civilian benefits for military personnel and their families. The reason that compounded medications are ripe for fraudulent schemes is because of the huge mark-up in costs that certain insurance companies and the federal government have been willing to pay for certain formulations. Some of the topical creams and ointments for pain and scars have been billed and reimbursed by insurers at upwards of $10,000 or more per prescription.

Often, the alleged schemes involve marketers that are paid a percentage of the reimbursed amount charged for each prescription. These marketers typically receive 30-50% of the amount received from the insurer. According to the government, in these schemes the marketers target people who are covered by insurance companies that reimburse for these types of prescriptions. Under the government’s theory, the marketers improperly target potential patients not based on true medical need, but rather based upon their insurance coverage.

Other schemes that have been successfully prosecuted involved cash kickbacks to the doctors who wrote the prescriptions, kickbacks to patients who bring in other colleagues that have similar insurance plans and pharmacies that simply submitted claims for compounded medicines that were never actually made or provided to the patients.

In these investigations, the government looks for what they believe are indicia of fraud:

• High volume of production or prescriptions
• Mass marketing using individual marketers or call centers
• High volume of out-of-state prescriptions
• Changing of formulations based upon insurance coverage/reimbursement
• Mass production of the compounds rather than for the individual patient
• Lack of true doctor-patient relationship; use of telemedicine
• Use of preprinted prescriptions
• Steering patients to particular doctors who write the prescriptions for their benefit rather than the patients’ medical needs

Physicians, pharmacies and sales representatives must be particularly careful when dealing with compounded drugs. They must insure that there is a true doctor-patient relationship, that the patient requires the compounded medication (its’ medically necessary), that the medication is compounded for that particular patient rather than mass produced and that the fees received for the marketing services are based upon the time and efforts expended in legitimate marketing activities.

At Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers we have defended these types of cases and have extensive knowledge of how these cases are investigated and prosecuted.

Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers aggressively defend individuals charged with complex federal and state crimes. Founder Robert G. Stahl is recognized as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the NY/NJ area for his skills, knowledge and success. To contact us to discuss your case, call 908.301.9001 for our NJ office and 212.755.3300 for our NYC office, or email us at rstahl@stahlesq.com.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently issued a directive to all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to charge defendants with the most serious provable offenses/ that carry the most substantial sentences, including mandatory-minimum sentences. This directive is a shift back to prior years where the “war on drugs” and other initiatives were designed to reduce crime and incarcerate – warehouse for extended periods – defendants for the longest possible terms.

Unfortunately, the myth that long prison sentences incarcerate the most dangerous offenders and reduce crime through deterrence, has been debunked in study after study. Former President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder, recognized this fact and had implemented a policy to not indiscriminately charge the most serious offense for non-violent drug offenses because it disproportionately incarcerated a generation of minorities. The prior administration, and interestingly Governor Christie, view these recidivist non-violent drug offenders as a health crisis.

The ACLU has reported that black males are four to five times likelier to be convicted of drug possession, even though black males and white males use drugs at similar rates. While the vast majority of drug dealers are white, three quarters of all people in prison for drug offenses are African American or Latino. The collateral consequences of the war on drugs results in a generation of people being incarcerated for excessively long terms, families torn apart and the loss of voting rights forever.

The return to a policy of charging the most serious offense, that often includes mandatory-minimum prison terms, takes discretion away from judges to fashion a sentence tailored to the individual offender, rather than the offense. With a mandatory-minimum sentence set by statute, the court lacks the ability to take into account the traditional sentencing factors of age, education, family background, prior good deeds, the actual nature of the offense, extenuating circumstances and the like. Mandatory sentencing simply imposes a minimum number of years regardless of the individual and the specific facts and circumstances of that particular case.

The financial consequences to society are great as well. Substantially more people are incarcerated for substantially longer periods of time, thus increasing the costs exponentially. The current cost of the prison system is approaching $100 billion a year. The trend in the past several years of fewer prisoners and a reduction in the number of privately run prisons that cost taxpayers even more money will be reversed under Sessions’ renewed charging policy.

Mandatory minimum sentences occur in the federal system as well as in many states. Some state, like Florida, have enacted extremely harsh mandatory sentences for selling as few as 25 or 30 pills of one’s own prescribed painkillers. Often these individuals are addicted to prescription painkillers and sell their drugs to support their habit. The only way to avoid the harsh minimum sentence is to become a cooperator/informant and set-up others in similar schemes. If the person cannot set others up, or chooses not to, they are incarcerated for years rather than receiving the appropriate drug treatment.

Opioid addiction is the most fast-paced drug problem sweeping the country. Heroin, prescription painkillers and synthetic opioids are the new drug of choice among a large cross-section of the population. The need for drug education and treatment has never been more pressing. Yet the proposed new federal budget cuts drug programs across the board. It seems like we are taking a giant step back in time, ignoring the reality of the drug problem and simply looking to incarcerate another generation of people.

Contact NJ & NY Criminal Defense Attorneys

Protect your rights.

Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers aggressively defend organizations and individuals charged with complex federal and state crimes. Founder Robert G. Stahl is recognized as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the NY/NJ area for his skills, knowledge and success.

Our offices are located in Mountainside, New Jersey and Manhattan. To contact us to discuss your case, call 908.301.9001 for our NJ office and 212.755.3300 for our NYC office, or email us at rgs@sgdefenselaw.com. Or Contact us online.

You are driving on the roads of New Jersey, paying attention to the speed limit, road conditions, and other drivers, when you glance in your rearview mirror and see the flashing strobe lights of a police car. You carefully reduce speed and pull to the side of the road to let the officer pass, but you realize he is pulling you over. What do you do, and what are your rights?

First, remain as calm as possible, turn off the radio and wait for the officer to approach before you start looking for your documents. The officer will approach either your driver’s window or the front passenger window depending on the officer and the situation. The officer will ask you for your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance. Hand those to the officer and ask why you were stopped. Some officers will tell you the reason and briefly listen to your side of the story. Many will simply tell you to wait in your car and return with your summonses. The side of the road is not the time to debate or argue with the officer. You are better off firmly, but respectfully, asserting your rights. If the officer asks you to step out of the car, you must do so. If the officer begins to question you about where you are going to, or coming from, you have the right to decline answering.

Suspicion of Alcohol Intoxication

If the officer says that he smells the odor of alcoholic beverage on your breath and asks how many drinks you have had, what type, and over what period of time, you have the right to refuse to answer.

If the officer asks you to perform certain roadside, field balance tests, you have the right to refuse, but you may still be arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and may be brought to the station for a breath test (known as the “Alcotest” as long as the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that you are driving under the influence of alcohol.

If you refuse to submit to a breath test, however, you will be charged with a separate violation for “refusal” and face a separate period of license suspension and fines that are meant to mirror those for DWI. Your right to remain silent does not give you the right to refuse a breath test; every motorist on the roads in New Jersey is deemed to having given implied consent to submit to a breath test. Also, even without a breath test, a motorist who refuses a breath test can still be found guilty of DWI, because a conviction for DWI can be based upon the officer’s observations of your driving prior to the motor vehicle stop; your actions, appearance and movements while stopped; and your appearance in police headquarters.

Suspicion of Marijuana

If the officer says that he smells an odor of marijuana in your car and asks you whether you have just smoked, or where the drugs are in the car, you have the right to refuse to answer any questions. If the officer asks for your consent to search your car, you also have the right to refuse consent. The officer should (but might not), tell you explicitly that you have the right to refuse consent to search the car. Police officers usually attempt to obtain consent prior to performing a search, because obtaining consent allows them to search the car, even without probable cause that a crime was committed or that the car contains contraband.

But your refusal to provide consent to search does not mean that the officer does not have the right to search the car. If the officer can (or is willing to testify that he can) smell marijuana in your car, he can search the car under the theory that he has probable cause to believe that there is contraband – marijuana – in the vehicle.

The possession of a small amount of marijuana or a DWI or refusal is handled in the local municipal court. The possession of a small amount of marijuana is known as a “disorderly persons” offense (which is akin to a “misdemeanor” in other states), and is criminal in nature. DWI and refusal are considered traffic offenses in New Jersey, but the penalties are severe. For any of the above offenses, you can suffer loss of driving privileges, costly fines and penalties, increased insurance costs, and possibly even jail.

Contact Our NJ Drug Trafficking Defense Attorneys

Protect your rights. For questions regarding criminal defense of drug charges and drug trafficking, including charges relating to cocaine and marijuana, or DWI charges, contact Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers. Our offices are located in Mountainside, New Jersey and Manhattan. Contact us online or call us at 908-301-9001.

There is an alarming trend towards aggressive investigations by state and federal authorities on physicians. Whether it is by the state medical boards, DEA or federal or state prosecutors, doctors’ practices are subjected to heightened scrutiny. While this may be traced to the war on drugs, recent deaths related to the abuse of prescription opioids, and the criticism the DEA has faced for its failure to develop measureable results in its enforcement efforts; the genesis is less important than the trend itself for those subjected to the harsh spotlight of scrutiny.

Under the standard that a physician is guilty of criminal conduct if he or she prescribes without “a legitimate medical purpose” and “outside the usual course of his or her professional practice,” many good, decent, over-worked physicians find themselves fighting to keep their licenses, DEA registrations and freedom. This is particularly true for those brave souls who continue to help patients with chronic, non-cancer pain.

The law enforcement climate surrounding prescribing opioids has resulted in many good physicians abandoning that aspect of their practice and patients. This has had the effect of reducing the number of physicians willing to treat those in chronic pain, while increasing the scrutiny on those who continue to do so. Those physicians now have become a limited pool of targets for law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

Most alarming is the increasing number of criminal investigations using undercover agents pretending to be patients with chronic pain. These covert operations may be run independently, or in conjunction with the medical board and DEA administrative authorities. These investigations may be initiated by a complaint from a pharmacy about the number of prescriptions by a particular doctor, a complaint by a patient or the patient’s insurer, a check with the Prescription Monitoring Program revealing a larger number of opioid prescriptions, or a motor vehicle stop of patients that are interviewed about their medications. With little more than a suspicion that the physician may be over-prescribing, a full-fledged undercover operation could be launched.

Should the undercover operation reveal certain conduct or actions that appear inconsistent with law enforcement’s view of normal medical practice, the physician and her office may be subjected to a search warrant, seizure of medical records and computers, administrative or grand jury subpoenas for medical records and testimony, and the entire staff may be interviewed and treated like co-conspirators. The devastating effects of such actions can result in severe economic and reputational losses to the medical practice.

The dangers faced by the physician require immediate retention of experienced, skilled defense counsel to represent and protect their interests. The dilemma faced by the physician may come down to fighting to keep her DEA registration and ability to prescribe Schedule II-V drugs, protecting her medical license or potentially waiving her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in a criminal investigation. These “parallel investigations” – criminal and administrative at the same time – often present a Hobson’s choice of actively defending one’s medical license by producing documents and testimony, or protecting one’s freedom and not testifying until the full scope and breathe of the criminal investigation is known. Only experienced criminal defense counsel can competently analyze the situation and offer advice about how to proceed. Every licensed professional must worry about their ability to continue in their chosen field, however, the first and foremost concern must be for one’s liberty. Although the instinct is understandable, rushing to defend the administrative action, while a parallel criminal investigation is on-going, may lead to disastrous results.

The dichotomy is straightforward. Physicians are trained to listen to their patients, rely in great part on their self-reporting of their conditions and pain, and to establish a relationship of trust. Law enforcement and regulatory bodies turn that relationship on its head and undermine what is a “legitimate medical purpose.” They hold physicians to a heightened standard of verification and a view that pain patients lie and deceive to obtain the medications for their own addictions or for diversion. Given this dichotomy, is it any wonder that physicians face increasing peril in their practices?

The attorneys at Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense have decades of experience representing physicians, dentists and other medical professionals in federal and state criminal and administrative investigations. If retained early in the investigation, our goal is to prevent criminal charges from being pursued or filed, and to protect the license and registration of the healthcare professional.

Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers aggressively defend individuals charged with complex federal and state crimes. Founder Robert G. Stahl is recognized as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the NY/NJ area for his skills, knowledge and success. To contact us to discuss your case, call 908.301.9001 for our NJ office and 212.755.3300 for our NYC office, or email us at rstahl@stahlesq.com.

On April 25, 2016, in the wake of startling revelations that a laboratory technician at the New Jersey State Police Laboratory in Little Falls had been falsifying test results, the Supreme Court of New Jersey issued an order centralizing the litigation of all post-conviction challenges in the State before a single judge. The order appointed Bergen County Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian to handle all post-conviction litigation in which Kamalkant Shah, the laboratory technician found to have faked results, was either the primary laboratory examiner, conducted peer review, or conducted administrative review of purported drug evidence. Pending cases predicated upon Shah’s laboratory work are to remain with the judges presently assigned under the order.

Shah was the primary laboratory examiner in 7,827 cases, conducted peer review in 970 cases, and conducted administrative review in 1,622 cases in the ten years he worked for the lab, from 2005 to 2015. A firestorm of controversy erupted on February 29, 2016 when the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office disclosed to the Office of the Public Defender and representatives of the criminal defense bar that Shah was observed “writing ‘test results’ to suspected marijuana that was never tested.”

It was later revealed that Division of Criminal Justice Director Elie Honig advised County Prosecutors on February 22, 2016 by letter that Shah had “failed to appropriately conduct laboratory analyses in a drug case” and that his failure should be disclosed to defense counsel. According to NJ Advance Media, which was provided a copy of the February 22 letter, “Mr. Shah was observed in one case spending insufficient time analyzing a substance to determine if it was marijuana and recording an anticipated result without properly conducting the analysis.”

If you or a family member has been wrongly convicted of a drug crime in NJ based on tests that you feel were either not completed or falsely reported, contact an experienced criminal attorney. The experienced attorneys at Robert G. Stahl Gasiorowski Criminal Defense Lawyers aggressively defend individuals charged with drug crimes. To contact us to discuss your case, call 908-301-9001 for our Mountainside, New Jersey office and 212-755-3300 for our New York City office, or email us at rgs@sgdefenselaw.com.

References

• https://stahlesq.com/wp-content/uploads/attachments/n160426a.pdf
• http://www.nj.com/passaic-county/index.ssf/2016/03/state_police_lab_tech_allegedly_faked_results_in_p.html

For many non-citizens, the threat of deportation is more terrifying than a prison sentence because it means permanent separation from the home that they have made here, and the family and friends who remain behind in the States. A criminal defendant’s immigration status also means that they may face mandatory detention awaiting trial or disposition, and more onerous prison conditions once sentenced. Such clients require the skills and experience of an attorney well versed in the intersection of immigration and criminal law to craft a plea or negotiate a sentence that avoids immigration consequences.

The attorneys at Robert G. Stahl, Esq. Criminal Lawyers, have this knowledge and experience. We have applied our knowledge and experience in representing clients who have been arrested and face trial in a wide variety of matters, including credit card fraud, mortgage fraud, obstruction of justice, health care fraud, terrorism, and drug possession and trafficking.

We also represent clients whose prior attorneys failed to give them advice about immigration consequences, or provided incorrect advice in this complicated and ever evolving field of law, by drafting and filing motions for post-conviction relief and coram nobis petitions in state and federal court.

We constantly educate ourselves in seminars and conferences where we learn about recent developments in the law, and consult with experts where necessary to ensure we give correct advice and achieve the best results while avoiding immigration consequences for our criminal clients. From a trial perspective, our experience representing non-citizens and immigrants has also been helpful in understanding and presenting cultural defenses, challenging admission of confessions and suppressing evidence where the client’s language proficiency and background may have precluded understanding his or her rights or waiving them properly, and preparing sentencing mitigation.

Attorney Laura K. Gasiorowski, Esq. frequently lectures on immigration consequences and criminal law. She has been a panel member and speaker for the “Immigration Law and Criminal Acts” seminar presented by the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, New Jersey State Bar Association, every year since 2012 along with well-respected judges, defense attorneys and immigration lawyers. Her lectures have focused on representing non-citizens and immigrants in the criminal justice system, and the particular challenges of language and culture differences.

Source for Graph:https://stahlesq.com/wp-content/uploads/attachments/fy2015removalStats.pdf