False allegations of child abuse, domestic violence,
marital rape and others have become staples within modern American divorces.
In many of the cases the abuses are real. But in some of them they are
not. This page is devoted to the wrongful accusations.
If you have been wrongly accused, or know someone who has been accused
of a form of child abuse or child sexual abuse or even domestic violence
or rape, this is the appropriate source for you. It is our aim to offer
you the essential information from which to decide if you need our services.
Most people who are wrongly accused have very naïve views of how
the legal system operates. Most folks, knowing they are innocent, believe,
mistakenly, that the people within the system can just tell that they
didn't do what they are accused of. Few people recognize the real problems
they face. It is in underestimating the danger that is the biggest pitfall
for the wrongly accused. It is the failure to recognize that not every
"official" is honest and looking for the truth that can prove
a legally fatal error. Most people will believe a lawyer regardless of
how obviously wrong their advice may be. Non-lawyers can give bad advice.
But bad advice isn't confined to just non-lawyers. A sad reality is that
many lawyers don't know what they don't know about these cases, are the
most dangerous purveyors of bad advice. Bad advice comes cheap. And it
often comes from those who cloak themselves in the aura of alleged knowledge.
Let's start at the beginning. According to the National District Attorney's
Association there is a conviction rate of nearly 87% in the cases of this
type that go criminal. And a dismissal rate lower than for most other
crimes, also in this area there is a much higher rate of plea-bargains.
There are lots of reasons this situation occurs. Some of it is the fault
of the accused, and much of which is the fault of the legal advice they
receive, and the hidden agendas of people in the system. Many accused
people fall victim to the "Now is not the time syndrome" which
so permeates the practice of law on this kind of case as to be an epidemic.
There is an abundance of do nothing lawyers who ask huge fees before the
case is tried and lost or worse yet, large fees charged and no work done
on the case and at the last minute the client is brow beaten to take a
plea bargain. That type of lawyer never makes any real efforts to have
the case dismissed early
There is one winning strategy. That is to immediately go on the attack,
to begin amassing evidence to show that you didn't do what you are accused
of. This is something you never want to "wait" for. The advice
to wait is always bad advice. You are likely in the case of an allegation
of child sexual abuse, for example, to face what we coined as the "Three
Ring Circus." The divorce court, juvenile court (dependency), and
criminal court. Today a fourth ring has been added in most parts of the
country, the domestic violence courts. In most jurisdictions in America
the bail is typically set very high. From $250,000 to over a million dollars!
Or denied altogether. There is No way to have you tested and prepare evidence
of your innocence if you are locked up. Of course the big money for lawyers
is in going to trial. By making no effort to have the charges dismissed,
a trial and the big income is virtually insured.
You need to act as soon as you have knowledge that an allegation is on
its way, don't wait till you have been hit by the freight train. Remember
all those movies with the people stranded on the railroad tracks? They
could get out of the car and walk to safety, but they stay with the car
and get clobbered. Of course the predictable human reaction is to try
to resolve the situation as cheaply and easily as possible. If somebody
tells you to do NOTHING and spend NOTHING, that is like giving a drunk
another bottle of wine! Just what you want to hear. The only problem is
it doesn't work. There are plenty of people willing to tell you just what
you want to hear to get your money. Few purveyors are willing to lose
a case by telling you the story straight and risk scaring you off by telling
you what it will really cost to mount a defense that stands a chance of
winning.
Here are some sage words by ex football great Vince Lombardi:
"Winning isn't everything, it is the ONLY thing!"
Let me make clear at this point that the services of the A-team are not
free or even inexpensive. We don't do pro-bono cases. We have no leads
on funding for your case. There are many others who claim to offer their
services for free or cheaper than we do. In reality they don't! Comparing
the costs to our clients versus some of our competitors when all the final
bills are all added up the A-Team is typically 33% lower. And we usually
win. If you are broke, we aren't the resource you are looking for. In
our program we start with the most expensive work up front. Why? Because
that is what that leads to the majority of our cases being dismissed within
30 days of our being retained. (Actually over 90% of our cases will be
dismissed before trial.)
You will need to examine the other pages here and learn as much as you
can. One of the most important parts to winning your case is you becoming
a full participant in the A-Team. We put together a team unique to the
needs of your case. We have a long list of reliable experts to draw upon
who are at the top of their individual professions, men and women of impeccable
character and credentials. The most important thing you need to know is
what constitutes the kind of evidence that will help you achieve victory
in your case. And also you need to know how to define what a victory is
for you. What the A-Team considers victory is not necessarily what others
consider a win. In a divorce case where the father is accused of incest,
by our standard it is a win only when dad has custody at the end of the
case if that is appropriate to the facts of the case. And that the allegations
are so completely destroyed they aren't made again shortly after the trial
as they are with most strategies.
To judge whether you need the A-Team or not, ask yourself what your lawyer
has done for you to make the allegations go away. Ask yourself what your
lawyer's plans are what specific strategy he or she will employ and what
the clear goals are, if you don't know the answer to those questions,
you need to realize that you are in deep trouble. If there is no clear
strategy, no clear objectives that coincide with the results you'd like
to see, you need to hire us. If you have no clear idea of what the case
against you is after a week or two of the lawyer being on the job for
you, you're in trouble! If the lawyer says; "Let's wait and see what
they come up with" it will be too late to do anything to make the
case go away. To the lazy practitioner there are a million excuses to
put things off until tomorrow, and pretty soon you will fall right into
the same trap. Not realizing that the monster is just outside willing
to kill you.
Not everybody likes the tools we use. It isn't a matter of what I like,
or what you like, or what out competitors like or don't. It is a matter
of what WORKS! It is a matter of what tools obtain the greatest impact
in accordance with the goals that we set together. We can debate the scientific
validity of this test or that test or procedure into the 30th millennia.
That all makes no difference, what counts is what works. Any other debate
is a silly waste of time and of effectiveness for you. It is also a waste
of your money.
The procedures we use are not stagnant. We have changed lots of the things
we do in the past 25+ years of doing this kind of work, we've changed
some things we have done just a month ago. The latest technology will
always be brought to bear and new techniques to keep pace with changes
in the technology used by prosecutors who also don't remain stagnant,
will always appear with thee A-Team first. Much of those who like to think
of themselves as our competition are relying on old materials and old
concepts. We use the state of the art procedures where we need to, but
we don't use some expensive technologies that don't really add to the
winning of a case just impress somebody. Multi-media is fine, but sometimes
we can do with an $80 slide projector what others only try to accomplish
with an $12,000 computerized ELMO system, we can do either or both as
your case or budget require. Your life isn't the time for guesswork. Our
programs are very technology based, and driven by strategies that are
proven to work when followed. If you need our help you'll get the very
best we and science has to offer. If you just want cheap, we're not it.
Some folks are adamant that we should be "true believers" and
be committed to some "cause." Fanatics are seldom effective
in the short run much less the long run. The A-Team is comprised of professionals,
not radicals with some personal agenda to exercise at the expense of your
case. Those who approach the work with that kind of agenda driving them
are more interested in living their life through your case as opposed
to any professional interest. What you need is not a rabble rouser but
an effective certified professional. Anybody can call themselves anything
they like. Deserving the title is another issue.
© 1998-2001 A-Team.Org All Rights Reserved
|