Five Felonies Reduced to One Misdemeanor — Sacramento Case 16FE017820

On September 22, 2016, Friedman Law Firm (FLF) client was charged with five felony violations related to identity theft. It was alleged that she possessed numerous credit cards that were linked to unlawful, third party accounts. Police investigators claimed that none of the linked accounts belonged to the client, and that the true owners of the accounts had reported fraudulent activity.

Client was in custody with a PC 1275 hold, meaning that she was unable to post bail until FLF was able to demonstrate that the funds used for bail came from a legitimate source (not the proceeds of illegal activity).

Client faced a maximum period of incarceration of 5 years and 8 months state prison.

FLF quickly obtained the credit card records and determined that the unlawful charges were not recently made. Client’s attorney, Ryan Friedman, was able to negotiate a plea deal to have the PC 530.5(a) felony charges dismissed in exchange for a misdemeanor plea to PC 530.5(c)(1) — “possession” of fraudulent account information instead of “use” of fraudulent account information. The District Attorney agreed with Mr. Friedman’s position that they could not prove that it was client who made the charges. 

While client initially faced a lengthy prison sentence, Mr. Friedman’s careful attention to detail enabled him to reach a stipulated sentence of only 45 days jail, which client was able to serve on home electronic monitoring.

Also, FLF was able to quickly resolve the case. This meant that client was able to avoid having to pay the cost of the bail bond, which saved her several thousand dollars in fees. She was immediately released from jail after entering the deal, and allowed to serve the balance of her jail time on home electronic monitoring.