Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney Blog

Whether you swiped a bottle of Tide from Walgreens or committed felony robbery and assault in addition to Los Angeles petty theft, you're probably feeling pretty sheepish and regretful. You're not the first person to steal "bizarre stuff" - and you won't be the last. In two posts, we're going to use true or false quizzes to test your knowledge of theft history.

Half of the following examples are made up, and half are real.

Can you guess which ones are which?

1. 310 foot inflatable gorilla stolen from the roof of a Kia dealership

The employees of Simi Valley California Kia dealership arrived to work to discover something astonishing: the 350 pound inflatable gorilla that had bedecked their roof had vanished. Was the wind to blame? Or did some frat brothers grab the gorilla as a hazing prank?

2. Dump truck full of golf balls swiped from Japanese indoor golf course

A large indoor golf course on the outskirts of Tokyo worked with police for months to nab three local men (part of a Thai mafia syndicate), who had swiped over 20,000 golf balls from the course. The men pulled a double scheme - reselling some of the balls to oblivious amateur golfers and drilling into other balls to secretly shuttle opium.

3. Condom machine swiped from pub

Talk about temerity! Many different witnesses saw a man rip a condom dispenser of the wall of a pub and take it home with him. The machine had $32 worth of quarters in it and 48 condoms. Police quickly apprehended him.

4. Jealous Los Angeles mom steals whole bounce house

On otherwise a peaceful July afternoon, the parents of a 4 year-old Los Angeles girl were greeted with an unpleasant birthday surprise. The "bounce house" they ordered for the party -- which had been installed and blown up the night before -- disappeared overnight, mysteriously. It turned out that a jealous mom (whose daughter was in the same playgroup) sneaked onto the property and hijacked the bounce house for her own daughter's birthday. When confronted, the mom admitted to the crime but told police "[my] daughter needs it more because she has more friends."

5. Inept ice thief transports stolen ice sculpture ... into the Southern California desert, unrefrigerated

A caterer at a Palm Spring's event facility purloined 13 ice sculptures from a local girl's bar mitzvah. His plan was to meet up with a contact to resell them for use other catered events. But for whatever reason, he forgot about Palm Spring's 110 degree heat, and the statutes melted en route. Cops nabbed him after they saw a video footage of him putting the statutes in his truck.

6. Jamaican thieves steal hundreds of tons of sand from a beautiful beach.

According to Ireland police, thieves snatched up tons of sand from a Coral Spring Beach. Local whistleblowers accused the police force of doing nothing and being part of a massive cover up. The crisis ultimately roped in Jamaica's Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, who had to order forensic tests on the purloined beach sand.

If you've been arrested for petty theft in Los Angeles -- or any other crime -- connect with an experience Southern California criminal defense attorney at the Kraut Law Group today for smart, effective assistance building your case.

ANSWER KEY:

1. (True) 2. (False) 3. (True) 4. (False) 5. (False) 6. (True)

Often, Los Angeles petty theft cases take a turn for the bizarre. Separating truth from fiction can be a lot more challenging than people realize. How are your instincts? Take this quiz to find out.

Three of stories actually happened, and three are totally made up.

1. Shoe fetishist steals 40 pairs of Marla Maples' shoes

Marla Maples, the erstwhile girlfriend of billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, discovered that her bedroom closet’s high heeled shoes had gone missing. It turns out that the culprit was none other than her publicist, who had brought the shoes to his office and was caught with a shoe fetish magazine.

2. The opposite of a petty theft in Los Angeles – 300 manhole covers swiped from the city streets

In 1990, one of the most mysterious Los Angeles theft cases of all time struck our fair streets. Two culprits swiped 300 manhole covers, each weighing nearly 300 pounds, to sell for scrap metal. The two men, who eventually were rounded up, did way too much work. Had they stuck to recycling aluminum cans, they could have made three times as much money per pound… and stayed on the right side of the law. Oops!

3. Nine year old caught trying to pickpocket Steve Jobs’ own iPod

In 2007, goaded on by his i-product infatuated mother, a 9-year-old boy attempted to swipe Steve Jobs’ personal iPod, during a South by Southwest Conference in Nevada. The young man made his move while Jobs was being swarmed by admirers after a talk, but he came up short when Jobs’ security team tackled him to the ground.

4. Louisiana man files lawsuit against countryman for “stealing his dreams” – and wins!

In a bizarre case (that was later thrown out, for obvious reasons), a man from Louisiana sued his overbearing neighbor for “stealing his dreams.” You read that right. The man had become convinced that his introspective neighbor was doing witchcraft, preventing him from being able to dream at night. The two neighbors initially had gotten into a fight over the first man’s rambunctious pet crocodile!

5. 400 pound bronze elephant statue vanishes

A family in Texas woke up one morning in March 2012 to discover that their 400 pound bronze elephant statue, nicknamed “Bon-Bon Babbar,” was gone. The pachyderm had been chained to the front portion of their home. Somehow, thieves managed to unchain, lift, and stow away with the bronze Babbar without waking anyone in the family.

6. Storeowner steals thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics – from his own home!

A Mason Georgia electronics manager pilfered two flat screen TVs, a stereo system, and a Bose surround sound system from his own home.

Why on Earth? He was trying to win a sales competition at work. He came up with the idea of offering his personal electronics as an incentive to “sweeten the deal” for buyers, so he could beat his coworkers out for a big bonus. Unfortunately, his wife reported the theft to the police. Not only was he arrested and charged with stealing from himself, but he was also fired from his job.

If you're trying to figure out what to do about your recent Los Angeles petty theft charges, connect with the team here at the Kraut Law Group today for thorough, insightful assistance.

1. (True) 2. (True) 3. (False) 4. (False). 5. (true) 6. (False)

Last Saturday, a 6 year veteran of the LAPD, Miguel Angel Schiappapietra, was arrested on charges of Los Angeles lewd conduct near Castaic.

Police say Schiappapietra lured two neighborhood girls to his home and sexually assaulted them. He had been patrolling the Foothill area prior to the arrest. At the initial hearing, Schiappapietra pled not guilty to Los Angeles lewd conduct felony charges. The prosecution doubled his bail to $200,000.

Pending the criminal case as well as an internal police investigation, Schiappapietra was put on paid administrative leave. The Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit is handling the case.

Meanwhile, out in Irvine, a 29-year-old tennis instructor, Jarrid Thomas Baldogo, was arrested on suspicion of Southern Calorifornia lewd conduct with a 13-year-old girl. The parents of the alleged victim found lascivious text messages on her cellphone and alerted police. Baldogo had connected with pupils via the web – a business he had been running for 2.5 years.

Getting charged with lewd conduct in Los Angeles carries a stigma. Attorney Kraut and the team at the Kraut Law Group can help compassionately, seriously, and effectively address your Los Angeles sex crime charges. Connect with our team today to explore your options and to get the intelligent, grounded help you need to regain some control.

Rob Kardashian’s Los Angeles petty theft and battery case has earned him time in the limelight, but odds are that his spotlight-hungry sisters are not particularly jealous.

In March, Kardashian -- the youngest child of Kris Jenner and lawyer Robert Kardashian -- allegedly swiped camera equipment from a photographer in the parking lot of a West Hollywood gym. Per reports, he was retaliating for her attempt to take shirtless pictures of him. He allegedly grabbed the memory card from the camera and told that he would pay for the card later.

According to celebrity news sources, Rob was undergoing a weight loss program, which might have explained why he wanted to keep the shirtless pictures out of the news. Andra Vaik, the photographer, subsequently sued the reality star.

Per the Huffington Post, the former Dancing With the Stars contestant “removed [Valk's] camera’s memory card, threw the camera back at plaintiff and left… stating 'I will pay when I see you.'" The suit also says that Vaik was both “struck on the face and suffered severe contusions on her arm and chest, as well as damage to her property.”

Her attorney told TMZ: “while this case is still in the preliminary stage, it is clear from our investigation that Robert Kardashian’s violent behavior and his use of force towards Ms. Vaik was simply unjustified."

For his part, Kardashian has countered that the photographer trespassed, and that she had been lurking in a private garage.

One lesson this tawdry tale teaches us is that petty theft charges often come "bundled" with other Los Angeles criminal charges, such as assault, robbery, domestic violence charges, etc.

To build an effective defense, you need to address the entire universe of charges – not just the petty theft charges. Doing so is not necessarily intuitive work. But you don’t have to develop your defense strategy and manage the situation on your own.

A Los Angeles theft defense lawyer from the Kraut Law Group would be happy to talk to you about your case, so that you can take judicious next steps. Attorney Michael Kraut spent over 14 years as a prosecutor of Los Angeles criminal cases, prior to becoming a criminal defense attorney. He and his team can give you the effective, grounded guidance you need to deal with your theft charges and get your life back on track.

On April 24, 2013, the Obama Administration announced a spectacular new “Senior Reward” program, which could spur many new additional Southern California Medicare fraud cases.

The so-called Senior Medicare Patrol would offer whistleblowers up to $10 million for exposing fraud. The whistleblower would get 15% of the recovered funds. This is a huge change to the current HHS model, which offers a 10% reward of up to $1,000. The revised program is modeled after an IRS program, which has helped that agency collect nearly $2 billion in fraud over the past 10 years.

Since 1997, the Senior Medicare Patrol has generated 7,000 plus referrals to the Office of the Inspector General and the CMS. In just the last three years alone, the Obama Administration has cracked down hard and managed to re-collect nearly $15 billion stolen from Medicare’s coffers. Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, stated the President’s intentions in clear language: “President Obama has made the elimination of fraud, waste and abuse, particularly in healthcare, a top priority for the administration.”

The big is question is: will this massive spike in incentive (from $1,000 to nearly $10 million!) make a big difference, in terms of generating better Southern California Medicare fraud cases and repairing the broken system?

It seems like it should, right? Isn’t it obvious that a reward of $10 million would attract a more vigorous response than a reward of $1,000?

Yes and no.

As motivation researcher, Dan Ariely, recently discussed in a very popular TED talk, the “stuff” that motivates human behavior (such as whistleblowing) is often highly counterintuitive. When a powerful purpose drives motivation, people often work extremely hard, often for free or for very little money. On the other hand, if a monetary incentive exists but the purpose behind the incentive is lacking, the cash reward may not motivate and may, in fact, DE-motivate.

Of course, most criminal cash rewards are tied into purposeful activity. For instance, when the FBI puts bounties on terrorists, people may be motivated to nab the terrorist not just for the money but also to fulfill a strong moral imperative (or purpose).

Similarly, when someone turns in IRS cheaters or people who've committed Los Angeles healthcare fraud, they will likely enjoy more than just a monetary reward -- they'll also get a feeling of serving a greater purpose (e.g. helping fix our skewed healthcare system).

Of course, as someone facing charges of healthcare fraud, credit card fraud, or other Southern California white collar crimes, you're probably less concerned about the overarching utility (or lack thereof) of motivational schemes to inspire whistleblowers and more worried about what's going to happen to you, your family, and your practice because of the charges against you.

Knowledge is power. The team here at the Kraut Law Group has the resources and track record to give you insights into your case and build a strong, ethical, and aggressive defense. Mr. Kraut is not exactly known as a “softie” on crime. In fact, he spent a substantial part of his career (14 plus years) as a hardnosed prosecutor for the city before becoming a criminal defense lawyer.

Maybe you concocted a sophisticated Los Angeles Medicare fraud scheme that raided the Federal Government’s coffers to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars. Or maybe you're being investigated for failing to meet a Byzantine health care requirement.

Before taking action, read this list of five “don’ts,” so you can avoid making further mistakes that could imperil your case and lead to unnecessarily long jail sentences, the stripping of your professional license, humiliation, massive fines, and worse.

5 “Don’ts”

1. Don’t lie.

Do NOT lie to authorities, investigators, your family, your Southern California white-collar crime lawyer, and, most importantly, yourself.

This isn’t to say that you need to “spill your guts” to investigators probing your business. You want to be strategic about how and when you disclose facts. But it IS very important that you completely disclose what you did – or what you think you did – to your attorney, who will keep that information in confidence.

Likewise, you need to be totally upfront with yourself about what you did and why you did it. It is difficult to introspect. But it’s an important part of the healing process – important not just for legal reasons but also for spiritual reasons. When you understand your underlying motivations, you can take actions to avoid getting in trouble in the future.

2. Don’t wait to get assistance.

Los Angeles healthcare fraud defendants often wait far too long to begin to come to grips with their situations. This is dangerous. If you wait too long, you may fail to collect potentially exonerating evidence. Besides, those days and weeks of “not knowing” can lead to unnecessary stress, anxiety, and depression.

3. Don’t look “outside” to assign blame.

Sure, you can blame “the system” for setting your business up to fail. Yes, you can blame an incompetent or a sleazy partner or associate for getting you involved in mischief. Of course, you can rail against the circumstances of your upbringing for “putting you in this position.” But the less responsibility you take for your actions, the more difficult it will be for you to change and effectively fight the charges.

Even if you face unfair – perhaps totally unwarranted – charges, take responsibility to the extent that you can, and you will feel more empowered.

4. Don’t beat yourself up.

Avoid judging or “hating on” yourself. What happened, happened. That’s reality. But it doesn’t mean that you are a “bad” person. You just made decisions that failed to meet your needs and the needs of others. The degree that you blame yourself or others is the degree to which you remain trapped in negative, unproductive mental models. Get rid of the shame, the blame, and the projections. Instead, focus on the true facts – the objective facts – of your current case and how you want your situation to be in 3 months, 6 months, a year from now, etc.

5. Don’t give up hope.

You know the expressions – “it’s always darkest before the dawn,” “the Chinese word for danger also means opportunity,” etc. But there is truth in these aphorisms!

Keep hope alive.

Your Los Angeles Medicare fraud charges are not the end of the world. You can turn your life around. Begin right now by connecting with the experienced, ethical team at the Kraut Law Group. Attorney Michael Kraut is a former prosecutor who has tremendous experience representing Southern California white collar crime defendants. He can help you develop and execute a smart and sound defense.

If you’ve recently been investigated or arrested for lewd conduct in Los Angeles, you're likely feeling terrified, overwhelmed, and isolated.

In this fraught state, odds are high that you will make one of the following 4 errors that could make your situation much more painful, legally complicated, and generally annoying. Read this article to “inoculate” yourself from these mistakes.

Mistake #1. Taking no action.

Some people charged with sex crimes in Los Angeles spring into action. The legal trouble serves as a major wake up call for them. Others, unfortunately, get overwhelmed by the stress and pressure. They metaphorically “hide in their holes,” in the hope that the legal storm will blow over. Remember the famous lyrics from the band Rush’s song “Freewill” -- "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Mistake #2. Focusing on what’s wrong, instead of what could be right.

Let’s not be naïve. There are a lot of things in your life that are “wrong” right now.

Odds are, in fact, that your Los Angeles sex crime charge is just the tip of a larger unfortunate iceberg. Perhaps you're also facing trouble at work (not even related to the sex crime charge), problems in key relationships, money problems, etc. So there is probably a lot wrong.

But don't overlook the potential for what could be right!

For instance, if you take effective steps, not only might you beat back the criminal charges, but you could also get into therapy, recalibrate your life and career goals, and mend fences with important people. Focus on what you can do, not just on what’s bad in your life now.

Mistake #3. Blaming yourself/the victim/other people.

When things get tight and tough, it’s easy to mete out blame and shame.

But these emotions and judgments serve no one’s needs. They just draw attention to what’s missing and what hurts inside of you. Don’t shove those feelings under the rug; instead, examine their root causes. Why might you be feeling shame? Why might you be blaming someone else or some institution? Think out loud on paper, if that helps you. Try to “drill down” to get the root of what’s really the matter.

Often, what we think is the matter is just a superficial symptom of a deeper emotional injury.

Mistake #4. Lying to yourself and others.

When you lie to yourself and to people who can help you (such as a qualified Los Angeles lewd conduct attorney), you set yourself up for a fall.

Protect your integrity. Hold on to it. Cherish it.

The old saying “the truth will set you free” sounds gimmicky, but it’s ultimately correct. When you're straightforward with your attorney -- fully disclosing -- he or she can build the most compelling and accurate possible case for you.

For help with your charges, look to the team here at the Kraut Law Group. Mr. Kraut is a highly respected, intuitive and knowledgeable L.A. criminal defense lawyer with a track record for success and great relationships in the local legal community.

Many Los Angeles Medicare and Medicaid fraud cases end in disaster for all stakeholders. For a tragic “rags to riches to rags” story, take a look at the disaster that befell the Scooter Store.

If you’ve ever watched daytime TV, you’ve no doubt seen commercials for the Scooter Store. The vendor of power wheelchairs (based in New Braunfels, Texas) sold its products to consumers by pummeling the airwaves with advertisements. But a blockbuster CBS News investigative piece about the company led to a federal government investigation and ultimately an FBI raid. Doctors and salespeople alleged that the company followed a diabolical playbook. Salespeople would contact doctors' offices and badger physicians to prescribe power wheelchairs and scooters to patients, even if patients did not need the products. They then relied on Medicare and Medicaid errors and bureaucratic snafus to approve the bad claims.

After the FBI raid, the company furloughed every employee and then laid off 1,000 workers.

How much damage was done?

One estimate suggests that the Scooter Store overbilled Medicaid and Medicare by up to $87.7 million. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services alone may have lost $50 million. The city of New Braunfels also wants $2.6 million from the Scooter Store – to pay back development money that the city lent the company to convert an old grocery store into its HQ. The company has said that it will pay back nearly $20 million; it filed for bankruptcy in the wake of all the legal turmoil.

Lessons for your Los Angeles Medicare fraud case

As we’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog, the government under the Obama Administration is taking Southern California white-collar crime – particularly healthcare fraud – extremely seriously.

Arrests and investigations have spiked over the past five years. The government has tremendous incentive – financial and political – to “crack down” on fraudulent schemes. It’s a particularly hostile environment for defendants. That means that you need to be extremely thorough and smart about how you prepare your defense and reconcile with the charges against you.

Recognize that you are now at a crossroads with respect to your life, your business, and your charges.

A strategically directed defense, developed and executed by a respected Southern California Medicare fraud lawyer, like Michael Kraut of the Kraut Law Group, can help you take effective next steps. However, if you don’t take your situation seriously -- e.g. if you fail to retain a creditable, responsible attorney -- you may be at risk of a longer than necessary jail sentence, the loss of your license to practice medicine, massive fines, and epic confusion and humiliation. Let Michael Kraut, a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor, help you plan your defense.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock (and if so, lucky you), you've been bombarded by breaking news in the Jodi Arais trial. The verdict is in: the woman who killed her boyfriend in 2008 after a day of sex -- shooting him in the face, stabbing him 27 times, and finally slitting his throat from ear to ear -- was found guilty by an Arizona jury of first degree murder.

It's a case that's fascinated tabloid-obsessed housewives and hardened Los Angeles criminal defense attorneys alike. And Ms. Arias now faces life behind bars... and possibly even the death penalty.

A Wild Affair

According to an NBC news report, "The Arias case has been the most watched murder trial this year, as 17 weeks focused around the soft-spoken defendant told of kinky sex and horrific violence."

So what happened?

Well, let's go back to the beginning. You don't have to delve far into the story to get into some super kinky details. Here's how CNN describes the start of Arias' relationship with her one-day murder victim, Travis Alexander:

"Arias was living in Yreka, California, when she met Alexander at a business convention in Las Vegas in September 2006. That November, he baptized Arias into the Mormon faith, a ceremony Arias said was followed by anal sex."

Wow. That distinctly does NOT sound like something that the Church elders in Salt Lake City would condone.

In any event.

The couple dated for nearly a year, but Alexander broke things off in the summer of 2007 and started dating other people. Arias stalked him, allegedly, peering into his window.

Despite their on again, off again relationship, Alexander invited Arias back to Arizona to have sex. (Per a USA Today report, at one point, the jury had to listen to "an hour-long audio tape in which Arias and Alexander talked about their travels, their many trysts and then indulged in loud and lurid phone sex. Alexander said he wanted to zip-tie her to a tree and commit a deviant sex act on her."

In June 2008, things came to a head when Arias -- possibly overwhelmed by alleged psychological and emotional abuse and/or some other serious mental problems -- murdered her boyfriend in spectacularly gruesome fashion.

Arias claimed she lashed out in self-defense -- that Alexander had imminently threatened her life.

The jury didn't believe it.

Arias' trial, itself, has been full of oddities as well with crowds and 24 hour news coverage that rivaled high profile celebrity trials of yore (think O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, etc)

Again, per USA Today: "[during] her taped interrogation by police... [Arias] stood on her head when left alone." During the trial itself, "someone's cellphone sounded with the hee-haw of a braying jackass as its ring tone. That same day, a spectator in the gallery vomited loudly and copiously in front of her seat and again as she ran toward the hallway."

The 32 year old also earned money by selling drawings she made in jail.

The big question now is: will the jury give Arias the death penalty or not?

For that, the nation will have to wait, for now.

If someone you know needs help defending against a Los Angeles criminal charge, such as a sex crime charge (hopefully not something as awful as stabbing your ex-boyfriend 27 times and slitting his throat from ear to ear and also shooting him), please get in touch with Attorney Michael Kraut of the Kraut Law Group. Mr. Kraut is a highly respected Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor, who has the experience and track record to help you build a very strong case.

Connect with a Los Angeles defense lawyer now to understand your rights and options.

A 50-year-old Calabasas man, Dr. Pezhman Ebrahimzadeh, was sentenced to three and a half years behind bars for falsely billing Medicare for over $3 million.

As penance for perpetrating healthcare fraud in Los Angeles, Dr. Ebrahimzadeh has been ordered to pay over $3 million in restitution, for his part in billing Medicare for medical services that he never performed. In many cases, these services involved patients who were no longer alive. Ebrahimzadeh – also known as Pez Abrahams – owns a cosmetic clinic called the Winnetka Medical Group, which provides liposuction and radiofrequency laser treatments.

Federal prosecutors say he collected information from beneficiaries to bill Medicare for never-performed procedures. He also collected information from 25 Medicare patients who were dead when they supposedly “got treated,” and then he changed medical records to conceal the Los Angeles Medicare fraud. He claimed he performed a bunch of pricey procedures, including radiotherapy catheter placement, bone tumor ablation, and revascularization, even though he lacked the equipment to do these procedures.

The 50-year-old doctor pled guilty in January to charges, but then he got into more legal hot water. He failed to report his arrest to pre-trial authorities, which he needed to do, per his bond conditions. Since then, California authorities arrested him again for sexually assaulting a patient who had been undergoing an exam at his clinic.

Abrahams’ serial legal troubles illustrate a relatively common phenomenon: when a person gets arrested for healthcare fraud in Southern California (or wherever), the bad news generally doesn’t all "come out" at once. It happens in stages. The timing of the revelation of these different pieces of bad news can influence legal strategy and even sentencing. That’s why it’s important to “come clean” with your Los Angeles criminal defense attorney early on in the process, so he or she can enjoy a 360 degree understanding of what you did (or allegedly did) and what investigators and prosecutors might find or argue.

You can’t necessarily control your legal destiny, but you can hedge against the worse consequences by being forthcoming with your attorney and by being compassion with yourself and other stakeholders.

The investigation and/or arrest is not the end of the world. It may not even spell the end of your practice. But you need to act effectively and ethically to fix what’s gone wrong and demonstrate responsibility and good citizenship. Connect with the Kraut Law Group for help understanding your options and building your defense. Attorney Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor, and he and his team are standing by to give you astute guidance.

The courts have financial incentive to avoid dealing with trivial Los Angeles petty theft cases.

Here's a bold illustration why.

Up in Monterey, 75-year-old Lilia Estoesta just got convicted of a single petty theft charge for stealing $60 worth of jewelry. The cost of the trial – just for the translator! – exceeded $2,000.

Estoesta pled guilty to pilfering jewelry from a JC Penny Store at a Salinas mall, prior to Christmas. She said that she wanted presents for her grandkids for the holidays.

Estoesta is a Filipino woman who speaks a language called Ilocano – so the court had to hire a special translator, plus reimburse that translator for lodging and mileage. All told, just the translator’s fees tallied at $2,018. Estoesta’s attorney argued that the court would not have had to spend that money (and waste time) had they agreed to come to a plea agreement. After all, the woman had no criminal record.

A local district attorney, James Perry, counter-argued that “Justice requires equal protection of the law and mandates that we treat similarly situated defendants equally.” Perry said that court would have let Estoesta off with community service without probation, if she agreed to a guilty plea on a misdemeanor. But her defense wanted to plea the charges down to a ticket, and a settlement could not be arranged prior to the trial.

Perry defended the court’s actions: “The Constitution does not take costs into consideration.”

The Superior Court Judge, Alert Maldonato, imposed no punishment on the 75-year-old, but Estoesta needs to pay all court-mandated fees.

The big takeaway here – if you or someone you care about faces a Southern California petty theft charge – is that the court system is pretty bureaucratic. That can be both good and bad news for your case. You need to understand the system and play within its rules and constraints.

If you've never been charged before, you probably don’t know what those rules are. Thus, you could easily make mistakes that could drag your situation out or lead to needless additional punishments and stress, particularly if your L.A. petty theft charge is connected with other crimes, like grand theft, robbery, hit and run, etc. The Los Angeles theft defense team at the Kraut Law Group is ready and able to help you prepare your defense and make smart, sensible choices going forward.

Our Los Angeles lewd conduct blog recently reported on the tragic but compelling story of 34-year-old Courtney Sue Reschke, who was arrested back in December 2012 for performing sexual acts with a 15-year-old boy.

The Idaho woman just pled guilty to six counts of lewd conduct – she was originally charged with 11 felony lewd conduct counts as well as misdemeanor charges for offering alcohol to underage minors.

Per court documents, Reschke offered a bunch of high school students alcohol and then engaged in sexual conduct with them. In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped five felony counts, but the remaining six counts each carries a life in prison sentence as a max charge.

She is due to be sentenced on June 20th.

Reschke admitted that she had been drinking heavily, and all six charges involve accusations that she had sex with a 15-year-old boy. The judge ordered Reschke to get substance abuse, mental health counseling, and psychosexual counseling. She also entered what are known as "Alford pleas" to the charges that she gave alcohol to minors. These are very similar to guilty pleas, except they technically allow defendants to claim innocence – while at the same time acknowledging that enough evidence exists to lead to guilty verdicts.

Is six life sentences behind bars (the maximal penalty she faces) a bit overboard?

After all, Reschke didn't kill anyone or commit massive theft or engage in intentionally malicious behavior, such as trapping or beating the young man.

But the law does take lewd conduct charges in Los Angeles (and elsewhere) very seriously.

Even if the sex act was ostensibly consensual, a conviction can hang around your neck for years, if not decades. Once you're convicted of a sex crime in Los Angeles, for instance, you may find it very difficult to get employment, find a place to live, rehabilitate your professional reputation, and repair damaged relationships.

That’s why it’s so important for lewd conduct offenders to get effective assistance as early as possible. Turn to ex-prosecutor (and former senior Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles) Michael Kraut and his team at the Kraut Law Group to plan out your next steps.

Mr. Kraut can help you build a judicious, appropriate strategy and restore your confidence and self-esteem in the wake of everything that's happened to you recently.