No.1: It seems crazy, but you are in criminal court. There does not even have to be a sign for you to be accused of trespassing.
It can be as simple as entering your neighbor’s property to ask a contractor working on that property to give you a price on an improvement you are planning to start at your place.
Unfortunately, the neighbor is nursing a real or imagined grudge and the police are called. The police do not even ask for your side. The next thing you know is the Suffolk County District Attorney has filed charges against you.
In the case I am describing it happened just that way. Still, a great deal of things would have to be true for a conviction, if your attorney is ready, it will not even survive a well-crafted Motion to Dismiss.
If it sounds far-fetched, the case described is a real one, that happened in one of the local jurisdictions.
No. 2: As in the earlier case it is a sign you have seen more times than you could count. However, for a restaurant or club owner each seat could mean $5,000 to $15,000 a year.
Moreover, as the business owner local code enforcement could claim “overcrowding,” not only would you be losing money that never sees the cash register if you comply, but you will be subject to fines.
The experience of this Office is that the local authority never gets the right number, whether it is because they do not understand how to calculate the space correctly or they engage in a bias that favors their municipality.
Now imagine a fire, a fight or something else and that wrong number is part of the evidence against the business or you personally in a civil or criminal court.
Note: These examples may seem minor, but criminal court should always be taken very seriously.
Open your local newspaper to the “Police Blotter” most crimes are not violent, but they can still stain your reputation or lives of your loved ones.
What you know or believe is hardly ever evidence and it is difficult to know the jeopardy you are in.
In most situations The Law Office of April-Leigh Horn can help.
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