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Copyright © 2019 Law Office of Paul Ghanouni, P.C. All rights reserved. Disclaimer. This book is not intended to serve as legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and the author. This is provided for general infor- mational purposes, and to assist you based on general circum- stances that commonly take place.





Contents CONTENTS............................................................................................ 7 1: DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE ABOUT YOUR CASE............ 11 The Police........................................................................................ 11 Friends and Family .......................................................................... 13 Your Cellmates ................................................................................ 14 Co-Defendants ................................................................................ 15 Jail Phones ....................................................................................... 15 The Exception to The Rule… ......................................................... 15 2: DO NOT TALK TO OR SPEND TIME WITH OTHER PEOPLE WHO WERE CHARGED WITH YOU........................ 17 3: DO NOT GET IN ANY MORE TROUBLE .............................. 19 4: DO NOT FORGET TO BE PROACTIVE ABOUT SHOWING YOU ARE TAKING THE CASE SERIOUSLY............................. 23 5: DO NOT REPRESENT YOURSELF ......................................... 27 RESOURCES......................................................................................... 31 Court Case Information .................................................................. 32 Court Case Information Page.......................................................... 33 Bonding Company Information ...................................................... 34

Bonding Company Info Page...........................................................35 Law Firm Information .....................................................................36 Law Firm Information Page.............................................................37





1 DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE ABOUT YOUR CASE There are four common categories of people that in- dividuals charged with a crime typically talk to about their case: the police, friends and family, cell- mates, and other people who were also charged in the same incident, which are referred to as co-defendants in the legal system. You will learn why you should not talk to these indi- viduals, why you should not talk on jail phones, and the ONE exception to the rule about not talking to anyone about your case. THE POLICE • In this situation, they are not there to try to help you. • They are not there to be your friend. • They are legally allowed to lie to you, while you are not legally allowed to lie to them. • They can try to trick you.

12 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME • They can try to manipulate what you say. All of this should be reason enough not to talk to the po- lice about your case. Very rarely are Make it simple. the police going to take the infor- Tell the police, “I mation that you give them and use it to help your case. The things that do not want to you say to the police are generally speak to you used against you. There have been many instances where our clients without a have told us that what the police lawyer.” Period. say they said was either taken very out of context or is inaccurate. The No further explanation. Nothing else needs to be said. safest thing to do to avoid anything you say hurting you is not to talk to the police. You always have the right to remain silent. If the police want to talk to you about an incident that you've been charged in, you should say “I do not want to make any statements without a lawyer.” If you do not say that you do not want to make any statements without a lawyer, they can keep trying to ask you questions. You cannot say, “Maybe I should get a lawyer” or “Do you think I need a lawyer?” or anything else that is not a clear statement that you do not wish to talk to them without a lawyer. Make it simple. Tell the police, “I do not want to speak to you without a lawyer.” Pe- riod. No further explanation. Nothing else needs to be said. If they try to come back later and question you again, you give them the same response.

PAUL GHANOUNI 13 There is a reason they want to talk to you without a law- yer, and it is because your lawyer is there to help you, and the police who are wanting to question you are NOT. FRIENDS AND FAMILY Often times people will talk to their friends and family, not realizing the situation they are putting them in. When you talk to your friends or your family about your case, you are turning them into witnesses in your case. This is not a good thing. That does not mean that they are witnesses that can help you because anything that you say as the person who is charged with a crime can be used against you in your prose- cution. For example, if you talk to a family member about every single thing that happened and how it was such a bad situa- tion (or whatever else you want to tell them) and the prose- cutor decides to subpoena this person, they have to come to court and testify or else they could face legal consequences, such as going to jail. They will have to tell the truth or else they could face a perjury charge. If these people are your friends and family and you do not want to get them in trouble, you should not talk to them about your case. It keeps them safe and it keeps you safe.

14 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME YOUR CELLMATES You may think that the guy in the cell with you is your best friend while you are in jail, but you do not actually know why they are there. You do not know what benefits they are look- ing for, or what is going on with their case. The one thing that you know about them is they are also facing criminal charges (or they are a law enforcement officer pretending to Even if you only be an inmate to get information tell your from you). A lot of people who are facing criminal charges are willing cellmates a little to do whatever it takes to not have about your case, to deal with the consequences of they can still try those charges, or to try to avoid more serious consequences of those to use that charges, which often times includes information to getting information from other in- make up other mates and using it to their ad- details to try to get themselves a deal. Do not fall victim to this. vantage. Even if you only tell them a little about your case, they can still try to use that information to make up other details to try to get themselves a deal. Do not fall victim to this. Do not talk to other inmates about your case. There is no reason to do that. They are not going to help you in any way. As a worst-case scenario, they are going to use it against you to try to get themselves a deal. It happens. All criminal de- fense attorneys have seen it happen. Do not be the next story we use to warn our clients.

PAUL GHANOUNI 15 CO-DEFENDANTS A co-defendant is the term the court uses to describe the other people who are charged with you in your case. Do not talk to them about the case either. They can also be called to testify against you in certain circumstances. They can also use what you say to try to get themselves a better deal. It does not matter how good of a friend you think they are, or that you think they would never turn on you, they can use that infor- mation to their benefit. The safest way to not have that be a problem is not to talk to those other people about what hap- pened or about any of the details of the case. It is for your benefit and their benefit. JAIL PHONES The calls from most jails are recorded. Do not talk on the jail phones about your case. It is amazing how frequently a pros- ecutor will come into court with recordings of what a person has said over the jail phones, even after the jail phone warns the person that the call is being recorded. It's not just a trick. The calls are recorded and monitored. Do not fall into the trap of talking about your case on the jail phones and having that recording used against you. THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE… With every rule, there is an exception. The exception to the rule of \"do not talk to anyone about your case\" is your lawyer and the rest of the legal team at the law firm you are working

16 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME with. The ONLY people you should talk to about the facts of what happened with your case is the legal team at your law firm. This does not mean anyone who is a lawyer, or any law firm, but the legal team who you have hired to represent you and who you know you have an attorney-client relationship with. Once you talk to your legal team about the facts of the case, your legal team will have a clear understanding of what took place and how to help you. But other than your legal team, you should not talk to anybody else about what hap- pened. We have more information on the key things to tell your legal team in other materials, but here is a preview of some of the main points to make sure to tell your legal team about: • other charges or convictions you had in the past, even if they were dismissed, sealed, expunged or took place in another state; • other pending or open investigations or charges that you are facing, regardless of how unrelated they may be; • other incidents involving the law, even as a victim, witness or otherwise; • the names of other people who were charged out of the same incident; and • whether or not you are able to pass a drug test.

2 DO NOT TALK TO OR SPEND TIME WITH OTHER PEOPLE WHO WERE CHARGED WITH YOU In the world of the court system, the people who are charged with you or out of the same incident are called your co-defendants. Chapter One covered why you should not talk to the people who were charged with you. If you did not read that section, go back and read the subsection titled \"co-defendants.\" The short version is: you should not talk to the people who were charged with you. The easiest way not to talk with them is also not to spend time with them.

18 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME You may wonder why you You should not should not spend time with the talk to the people who were charged with you. people who The real issue here is that often times when you are trying to pre- were charged pare for your criminal case, you with you. The want to have yourself viewed in the easiest way not best light possible. One of the ways to talk with them is not to spend time with them. to put yourself in the best light possible is not to spend time with the people who you were charged with. It shows that you recognize that you do not end up in good situations when you are with those people. It is also a good way to help keep you out of trouble. When you hang out with the people who you got in trouble with before, there is a good chance you may get in trouble again. Spending time with them also leads to talking about your case with them. The safest thing to do is not to hang out with the people who you got charged with. Often times you want to separate your- self as much as possible from those individuals.

3 DO NOT GET IN ANY MORE TROUBLE This may sound pretty straight forward, but it is ad- vice that is often ignored. Do not get in any more trouble. If you have a pending criminal case, you do not want to have another pending criminal case. That is about the worst thing that can happen when trying to get a favorable resolu- tion to the charges you are already facing. The ways to easily avoid this are to not use drugs or alco- hol, not commit any crimes, and not spend time with anyone who uses drugs or commits crimes. You never know when you might have to be drug tested in relation to your criminal case, but a positive drug test is going to be another issue that you do not want to have to deal with while your criminal case is ongoing. It can disqualify you from certain potential positive resolutions to your case, potentially add additional charges, and result in the revocation of your bond, which means you

20 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME would have to go back to jail with no bond. You may be thinking, “Why Do not use do I need to stay away from people drugs. Do not who use drugs and commit commit any crimes?” Because it is much easier crimes. Do not for you to get charged with some- spend time with thing you did not know about if anybody who you are with a friend who uses uses drugs or drugs or commits crimes. commits crimes. A simple example is: you are riding in the car with your friend who you have no idea has any drugs on them, but you know that they sometimes use. While you are riding in the car, the blue lights come on and the police pull the car over. The next thing you know, the car is searched, drugs are found in the car, and you are getting charged for them. That is not the situation you want to be in when you have a pending criminal case, or ever. Another example is: you go to the store with one of your friends and you walk out the door to have loss prevention and the police meet you because your friend (again, without you knowing) stole something, but the police and the loss preven- tion officer consider you a party to the crime and you get charged with it too. In case you are wondering, these ARE real life examples. The easiest way to avoid having any new charges while

PAUL GHANOUNI 21 your current case is pending is not to do anything illegal, not to hang out with people who do things that are illegal, and not to use drugs. This may seem obvious, but it is one of the most common things that derails a positive resolution to a criminal case.



4 DO NOT FORGET TO BE PROACTIVE ABOUT SHOWING YOU ARE TAKING THE CASE SERIOUSLY Do not forget to be proactive about showing you are taking the case seriously. What does this mean? This means that you want to stand out from everybody else who is coming to court for a case similar to yours, and you want to take steps that will help you avoid similar situations in the future. For example, if you are dealing with a case that involves alcohol or drugs, it is often a good idea to go get a substance abuse evaluation and follow up with any recommended treat- ment. You could go to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings. If you go to AA or NA meetings, make sure to get a small notebook that you can use to log where you went, the time and date of the meeting, and also

24 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME have the person who ran the meeting sign off that you were there. If you are dealing with a case that involves violence, it may be a good idea to get an anger management evaluation and follow up with any recommended treatment. It will al- most always be a good idea to do some community service work while your case is pending. These types of activities will not only help you from a court perspective, but they also have the opportunity to have a positive impact on you and the com- munity. In addition to doing these types of things, you should look at what type of image you are putting into society about You can yourself. Take a look at your social download a media pages. Are there pictures of form to use to you at the bar when you have a pending DUI? Are there pictures log AA/NA of you in a marijuana t-shirt while attendance or to you have a pending drug case? If a log community prosecutor were to see your social service work on media, would they see an upstand- ing member of society, or would the free they see somebody that is going to resources continue to get in trouble? If you portion of our are thinking, “they will not be able website at www.ArrestedGuide Resources.com to find my stuff,” then think again. That is what everyone who had a prosecutor or judge see

PAUL GHANOUNI 25 something negative about them on social media thought. You want to show you are taking this seriously and make yourself look as good as possible, and you want to stand out from everybody else who goes to court not having done any- thing and not taken any steps to show they are taking the sit- uation seriously. This can be the tipping point between get- ting a positive resolution to a case and a negative resolution to a case. Do not post Some people say, \"Well, if I do anything on this, doesn’t it make it look like I'm social media guilty?\" The answer to that ques- about your case, tion is “no.” We have never seen the fact that someone took steps to about the show that they were taking the case prosecutor, seriously ahead of time used about the judge, against them. It will not hurt your or about any case, and it can only help you. law Also, when posting on social enforcement officer. media, you should not post anything about your case, about the prosecutor, about the judge, or about any law enforcement officers. Here is a real-life example: after going to court with- out hiring an attorney, a person had a bad experience and they posted a negative comment about judges and the judicial sys- tem. They hired our team, and the next time we walked into the court room, we heard from the judge how he had read the

26 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME information this individual had posted. As you might imag- ine, it did not help the case. While your case is ongoing, make every decision from the perspective of, “What if the judge and prosecutor were watch- ing what I’m doing right now? What would I do knowing that?” And that's the best way to make sure you do not forget to be proactive and show you are taking the situation seri- ously.

5 DO NOT REPRESENT YOURSELF Do not represent yourself. Hire a criminal defense law firm. This chapter is not going to go through all the details on how to make the decision on how to hire a criminal law firm, which will be available as a separate Just because guide under the free resources sec- you can find an tion of our website. The simple online guide on fact is you are not a lawyer. You how to perform have not been trained in the legal brain surgery on system. You are not trained in how to do research on legal issues. You yourself does not mean you should do it. are not trained on how to interpret case law. You are not trained on how to understand which details of a case are legally important. If you have never been through this process before, then you have not experienced all the potential impacts a criminal case can have on your future.

28 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME Unless you have no care or concern about your future, you do not plan on ever doing anything that could require a back- ground check (like getting a job, applying for a loan, going to college, getting a professional license, or anything else of that nature), then you should hire a criminal defense law firm to help you and make sure you can get the best possible resolu- tion to your case. This is not to say you are not smart enough to learn how to do these things. You probably are. It is just to say that you have not spent a good part of your life or career training and gaining experience in how to fight criminal charges. There are a lot of complexities and nuances to criminal law that even lawyers and law firms who are not focused ex- clusively in criminal defense do not understand. There are also a lot of aspects of a criminal charge that can follow you for the rest of your life that you may not be aware of or un- derstand. An experienced criminal defense team will under- stand these aspects, and will be able to guide you to the best path to achieve your goals. Just as an example, about 10% to 25% of our cases at any given time are working on going back and fixing what hap- pened to a person who either represented themselves in court or who had a lawyer or law firm who did not fully understand all of the nuances of criminal defense. It is much easier to handle a situation correctly on the front end of a case than trying to go back and fix it after the fact.

PAUL GHANOUNI 29 You may plan on just going into court and pleading guilty, but that may not be the best idea for you. Your case could have some long-term impacts, and the only way to know what those long-term impacts could be is to have an experienced criminal defense team helping you on your case. The internet is not an experienced criminal defense law firm. Your friend who got arrested before is not an expe- rienced criminal defense law firm. Some courts also have programs that allow for charges to be dismissed, in some circumstances. An experienced crimi- nal defense team will be able to identify all the options that are available to you, and whether you are eligible for various programs or options a court may have. Additionally, some of those courts that offer these types of programs require you to have a lawyer to be able to go into one of those programs. This is not to say that this is fair, or right, or just, or anything like that. This is just a fact that affects your future, which can be the difference between having or not having charges or a conviction on your criminal record for the rest of your life. Just because you can find an online guide on how to per- form brain surgery on yourself does not mean you should do it. You are dealing with a situation that can impact you for the rest of your life. You would not perform brain surgery on yourself. Do not represent yourself in court.

30 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME To learn more about how to select the best criminal law firm for your case, please visit www.SelectingACriminalLawFirmGuidebook.com where our book on how to select a criminal law firm will be available.

Resources Over the next few pages we have provided resources you can use to help manage your pending criminal case. Each set of pages is broken up with information for you on the left page and a form for you to fill out on the right page. The first set of pages cover court information, the next set of pages cover information about your bonding company, and the last set of pages cover information about your law firm. Please use this book as a resource to help make sure you do everything you need to do so that you remain out of jail, and your pending case gets the best possible resolution.

32 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME COURT CASE INFORMATION The next page is a page you can use to document information about your court case and to track upcoming court dates. One item on this page is the clerk of court’s phone num- ber. The clerk’s office is the office that can give you infor- mation about your case, such as confirming an upcoming court date. They are also the office you must provide with any change of address for the court to have your correct address. If you don’t have a court date when you bond out of jail, we recommend contacting them weekly, but no less than once a month to see if a court date has been scheduled. Below that you have a chart to track your court dates. You may have more court dates than can be tracked on this chart, but this can be a good start. You should always assume your attendance is required at court dates unless you have a law firm representing you and they have told you that you do not need to be there.

PAUL GHANOUNI 33 COURT CASE INFORMATION PAGE What Court is my case in: _____________________ What is the address for that court: __________________________________________ __________________________________________ Clerk’s Office Phone number: __________________ Charges: __________________________________________ __________________________________________ Case Number: ______________________________ Use the Chart Below to Track Your Court Dates COURT COURT HEARING COURT-ROOM ATTENDANCE DATE TIME TYPE REQUIRED?

34 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME BONDING COMPANY INFORMATION Your bonding company is the company that is allowing you to STAY OUT OF JAIL. If you fail to follow their instruc- tions, they can come off your bond and have you put back in jail. Other than your attorney, this is one of the most im- portant organizations to stay in contact with. Different bonding companies have different rules for working with them and different instructions you need to fol- low. Important things to talk to your bonding company about are what to do if: • You plan to move and change your address • You plan to change your phone number • You need to travel out of state Additionally, make note of anything else your bonding company tells you to do while being out on bond, such as checking in with them or providing any other information to them.

PAUL GHANOUNI 35 BONDING COMPANY INFO PAGE Bonding Company: _________________________ Phone Number: ____________________________ Contact Person: ____________________________ Special Instructions from Bonding Company: __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________

36 FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME LAW FIRM INFORMATION The next page is used to track information about the law firm you are working with on your case. It’s always good to know who the best points of contact are with your law firm and the email addresses. We provided multiple lines, so you can list the primary contact person and the backup contact person for the firm you are working with, or you can list each attorney team member who will be work- ing on your case. In the section below, we have included an appointment tracking sheet. You can use this to easily track your scheduled appointments with your law firm. Common meeting types our law firm conducts, include: • Fact Gathering/Mitigation Planning Meetings • Pre-Court Preparation Meetings • Negotiation Discussions • Strategy Meetings • Status Meetings • Post-Court/Case Conclusion Meetings

PAUL GHANOUNI 37 LAW FIRM INFORMATION PAGE Firm Name: _____________________________ Firm Address: _____________________________ Firm Phone Number: ________________________ Points of Contact: ___________________________ Email Addresses: ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ APPOINTMENT TRACKER DATE TIME TYPE PHONE OR IN PERSON



To learn more about how to select the best criminal law firm for your case, please visit: www.SelectingACriminalLawFirmGuidebook.com where our book on how to select a criminal law firm will be available. To learn more about our firm, please visit www.ProtectingTheArrested.com