Visalia Criminal Law Blog

An 18-year-old man, who until recently attended the University of California Santa Cruz, could face decades in prison if convicted on charges of selling cocaine and methamphetamine. Undercover agents from the Department of Homeland Security allege that he built a mobile phone application called Banana Plug that enabled the sale and distribution of various recreational drugs like marijuana, cocaine, molly and mushrooms. He paid bail to obtain his release ahead of his next court appearance.

Agents described using the app to communicate with the man and arrange drug purchases on three occasions. A news release from the attorney's office for the Northern District of California revealed that law enforcement arrested him at his dorm room. Indictments on four counts of possession of cocaine and methamphetamine with an intent to distribute have left him facing felonies.

A 43-year-old California woman was sentenced to five years in a state prison on Feb. 4 for embezzling $474,000 from the owners of a Paso Robles company. Prosecutors say that she took advantage of the elderly owners of the company over a period of about three years after being hired as a bookkeeper. Media reports reveal that the woman is being held at the San Luis Obispo County Jail and may serve her sentence at the California Institution for Women.

Police began to investigate the woman's activities in June 2018 when a manager at the company called to report a series of suspicious transactions. The manager is said to have shown police several forged checks and about $421,000 in unauthorized withdrawals and transactions. Police say that the woman originally claimed that she was working at the behest of her employers and took the money to donate to charity. Some of the money was allegedly used to buy a diamond ring.

Football fans in California may have seen P.J. Williams most recently when his New Orleans Saints were beaten by the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game. However, they may not know that the promising 25-year-old cornerback was taken into custody for driving drunk after being pulled over by police in Louisiana during the early morning hours of Jan. 23. Media accounts of the incident reveal that this is not the first time Williams has been accused of getting behind the wheel after consuming alcohol.

According to a New Orleans Police Department report, Williams was pulled over at approximately 1:10 a.m. on Camp Street near Andrew Higgins Boulevard for driving at 80 mph in a 50-mph zone. Police say that the football star was also driving erratically and failed to use his turn signal. The officers involved claim that Williams showed signs of intoxication but declined to submit to a breath test at the scene. Reports indicate that he was released on his own recognizance about three hours after being booked.

Misdemeanors account for about 80 percent of the criminal dockets in California and around the country. Misdemeanors are minor crimes punished by fines, probation or short jail sentences, but the way these sanctions are handed down has been criticized by civil rights groups and criminal justice researchers. Much has been written in recent years about sentencing disparities between white and black defendants in felony drug cases, but studies reveal that these imbalances are even more pronounced in misdemeanor cases.

After studying the outcomes of more than 30,000 misdemeanor cases adjudicated in Wisconsin over a seven-year period, a researcher found that white defendants were 75 percent more likely than black defendants to have the charges against them reduced, dismissed or dropped. The researcher also found that white defendants with no record of prior criminal activity were 46 percent more likely to have misdemeanor charges carrying a possible custodial sentence dropped than African American defendants with clean records.