Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

Re: credit card theft

Do not talk to the detective or police. If they contact you, tell them you don't want to talk without an attorney. Contact me at 248.865.4700 Daniel Hajji

Re: credit card theft

I see you are in Livonia. I am in Livonia and have successfully handled dozens of these. Do not speak to the police without counsel! Contact me at www.kliszlaw.com to discuss strategy. Tim Klisz

Re: credit card theft

The first answer did not really answer your specific questions. You were asking more about the likely/possible sentence. It's hard to give a specific answer, in part because we do not know the county this happened in, the judge who will have it for sentencing, etc. Some prosecutors or courts have diversion programs that you might qualify for. Some judges may be more apt to hand out jail time than others but we do not know which judge has this case.

You can do some things to posture yourself in a better light with the court. The first thing is, if there is an oustanding arrest warrant, to respond to the warrant ASAP ... to come into the court voluntarily rather than have the warrant sit in the system for a long time and then you get arrested when you are lest prepared. Doing the former can be spun in your favor by your attorney as you "not running", as you "cooperating", etc.

"No talking to a detective" (as the first answer advised) is different from "turning yourself in" on an outstanding arrest warrant.

Another thing you can do to posture yourself better is to have restitution money, fines/costs money, etc in your hand to pay to the court on the spot at the sentencing. This might cause the sentencing judge to decide that probation time is not needed (many defendants get probation just to collect restitution money over time) AND that jail time for punishment isn't needed because you have stepped to the plate to take responsibility. You might walk away with just a fines-and-costs type of sentence. Heck, you're going to have to pay "full restitution" anyway per our crime victim's rights act, so be prepared to pay it up front.