Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Sexual Assault...

It could be that your friends will testify to help their friend and charges against him will be dismissed, either before charges are filed, during litigation or trial. This will not necessarily mean that the prosecutor or the police will think you filed a false police report. It could simply mean that in light of the testimony by eyewitnesses favorable to the accused (regardless of whether such witnesses might be biased or not) they have decided they do not have sufficient evidence to proceed with the case.

While I cannot make any guarantees, it seems that prosecuting you for false report would be a long shot, if the only grounds would be testimony by obviously biased witnesses, i.e., friends of the guy who was accused of rape. If there is additional more objective evidence that you had lied that might be a different story. If rape charges are to be dismissed, it would seem the prosecution would like put the whole case to rest. Accordingly, just because they do not feel they can come up with proof beyond reasonable doubt against the accused rapist does not all of a sudden mean they have such high level of proof against you for false report. In other words, just because they would not believe does not mean they would want to file a case against you.

Hope this helps,

Jacek W. Lentz, Esq.

310.273.1361

www.lentzlawfirm.com

Re: Sexual Assault...

Hi,

Your actually dealing with a few issues here so lets take them one at a time. First a crime was committed against you by someone and from what you have described the crime is rape. Apparently there are two witnesses to the rape and they are also friends of the accused. You have learned the witnesses plan on denying they saw anything and as a result you feel the D.A. may not prosecute the suspect and will consider the police report you made accusing the suspect of rape a false report. I believe that summarizes your statements.

There are a lot of crimes committed that the D.A. does not prosecute. It is generally because the D.A. feels there is not enough evidence to convict. If the D.A. decides not to prosecute the rape case it would probably be due to the D.A. feeling there is not enough evidence to convict the suspect. If that is what happens it does not mean they believe the suspect did not commit the crime. It only means they feel they can not get a conviction based on the evidence they have. It certainly does not mean they think you have made a false police report.

Next, the witnesses you are talking about would be considered biased witnesses at best because they are friends of the suspect. The D.A. may not believe what the witnesses say happen but if there is no other evidence to support a conviction the D.A. will probably feel they can not get a conviction and therefore not prosecute. However, if that is what happens it does not mean the D.A. does not think the crime happened. Again it simply means the D.A. may feel there is not enough evidence to convict. The D.A. may still believe the suspect did commit the crime but they do not think they can get a conviction. Therefore do think that a D.A. will go after you for filing a false police report just because they have two biased witnesses stating nothing happen. Just because those witnesses are saying something does not mean you are lying and the D.A. knows those things. There are never any guarantees in situations like this but it would be highly irregular for a D.A. to go after a victim due to something like you have described. Good luck and I am sorry for what happen to you and what is still happening to you.