Credit Card Fraud
A young man was charged with a number of counts of Credit Card Fraud and Larceny in state court. Authorities believed that the man was working with a larger group of people involved in similar misconduct across the country and certainly in the region. The man was using physical credit cards, preprogrammed with stolen credit card numbers and others’ account information, to make various purchases of items such as gasoline, concert and sporting event tickets and retail merchandise. Local and federal police were investigating such misconduct on a wide scale basis. Authorities believe that credit card numbers and account information are stolen in various ways such as online, email and internet fishing scams designed at capturing account information or ATM skimming schemes whereby specially manufactured equipment is secretly installed on ATM machines to record account information during customer transactions.
The man involved in this case was ultimately apprehended, not for stealing credit card numbers and account information, but for making purchases with such stolen, sensitive information. Surveillance videos and cooperating informants were used to aid police with locating and arresting the man for his actions of possessing and making purchases with the stolen credit card information. Police secured an arrest warrant for the man, but could not locate him. He first retained Attorney Calcagni to assist him with this matter. Attorney Calcagni first negotiated a voluntary surrender of the man to local police. At the time of surrender, federal agents were present to solicit the man’s cooperation or recruitment as a government information. As leverage, the federal agents threatened federal prosecution. Notwithstanding, the man declined to aid authorities or to cooperate in any manner. From there, the man was presented in state court for arraignment. Attorney Calcagni then successfully secured his client’s release on personal recognizance over the prosecutor’s objection and request for a high amount of cash bail. From that point onward, the case slowly moved through the pretrial process for more than one year. During this time, Attorney Calcagni filed a number of motions for discovery and alleging discovery violations by the prosecution.
Faced with the prospect of having the case and its charges involuntarily dismissed by the Court for said discovery violations, the State ultimately ceded to Attorney Calcagni’s request for a pretrial resolution of the case that did not involve a criminal conviction or any jail time for his client. Attorney Calcagni ultimately negotiated that in exchange for a one-time payment of restitution, the case would be continued without a finding for twelve (12) months. Providing the man is not charged with a new offense during this time, his matter will ultimately be dismissed and he will not incur a criminal conviction from this event.