Philadelphia Criminal Defense Blog
PA Superior Court: Google and Facebook Are Not Government Agents When They Scan User Accounts and Report Internet Contraband to NCMEC
Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak T. Goldstein, Esquire
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has decided the case of Commonwealth v. Thomas, 2026 PA Super 209, holding that Google and Facebook do not act as agents of the government when they scan their users’ accounts for child sexual abuse material and report what they find to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The defendant argued that federal law, which requires the companies to report this material and fines them if they do not, makes them instruments of law enforcement, so their warrantless searches of his accounts violated the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Court rejected the argument in a published opinion. But the holding rests on a thin record, and the Court left the harder questions open.
The Facts of Thomas
In May 2023, Facebook and Google sent three CyberTipline reports to NCMEC stating that files had been uploaded through Facebook Messenger and to Google Photos. NCMEC forwarded the reports to the Pennsylvania State Police. A State Police corporal viewed the images, subpoenaed Verizon and Google for the subscriber behind the IP address, and obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s home in Fayette County. Police found child sexual abuse material on two of his phones. The defendant moved to suppress, arguing that Google, Facebook, and NCMEC were all acting as agents of law enforcement when they searched his accounts. The trial court denied the motion, a jury convicted him of twenty counts of possession, one count of dissemination, and one count of criminal use of a communication facility, and the court sentenced him to six to twelve years in prison.
The Superior Court’s Decision
The Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 8 restrain the government, not private parties. Under United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984), and Commonwealth v. Shaffer, 209 A.3d 957 (Pa. 2019), the police may use what a private party finds and turns over so long as they do not exceed the scope of the private search. The doctrine does not apply if the private party was really acting as an agent or instrument of the government, and the answer to that question depends on the degree of the government’s participation in the private party’s activities.
The defendant’s argument rested on 18 U.S.C. § 2258A, which requires providers to report apparent child sexual abuse material to NCMEC and fines them up to $1,000,000 for knowingly failing to do so. The Court held that the statute does not make Google and Facebook government agents because subsection (f) of the same statute says that nothing in it requires a provider to monitor its users or affirmatively search, screen, or scan for the material. Congress required the companies to report what they know and left the decision whether to look entirely to them. The Court then made a critical point: nothing in the record showed that Google and Facebook searched the defendant’s accounts at the government’s urging or through any manipulation or coercion. The Court cited decisions from five federal circuits reaching the same result and followed them.
The Court treated NCMEC differently. It acknowledged that Congress funds NCMEC, requires providers to report to NCMEC rather than to the police, requires NCMEC to forward every report to law enforcement, authorizes NCMEC to receive and distribute material that would be a crime for anyone else to possess, and immunizes NCMEC for doing so. It noted that the Second Circuit in United States v. Guard, 152 F.4th 375 (2d Cir. 2025), and the Tenth Circuit in United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292 (10th Cir. 2016), have held that NCMEC is a government agent. The Court did not decide the question because the defendant never argued that NCMEC or the police looked at anything Google and Facebook had not already looked at. Without a scope argument, NCMEC’s status did not matter.
The defendant did win a new trial on the dissemination count, because the Commonwealth proved that charge entirely through the CyberTipline report, which it introduced as a business record through the corporal, and the Court held that an investigating officer who merely receives and relies on NCMEC reports is not a qualified witness who can authenticate them.
The Takeaway
The state actor argument is still open. The Court did not hold that Google and Facebook can never be government agents. It held that this defendant did not prove they were on a record that failed to provide any evidence as to why the companies scan their users’ accounts, how those systems came to exist, or what role law enforcement and NCMEC play in them. The Court said in so many words that the record did not support a finding that the government urged, manipulated, or coerced the searches. That may be an opportunity to build a better record in a future case. A defendant could subpoena the providers and develop testimony about the government’s participation in the design and operation of these scanning programs, where the hash databases the providers match against come from, and what the providers get in return presents a different case. The agency test turns on the degree of government participation, and no one in Thomas presented any evidence of participation to the trial court, so there was nothing to support the appeal.
The second open question is what happens when the police look at files that no human at the company ever opened. In Thomas, the Facebook report itself said that NCMEC never viewed the files, and nothing in the opinion says anyone at Facebook viewed them either. A computer flagged them, and the first person to actually open them may have been the trooper. The private search doctrine lets the police look at what a private party already looked at. It does not necessarily let the police look at something a private party's software only flagged. The defendant never made that argument, so the Court did not address it. It has to be raised in the suppression motion and supported with evidence at the hearing because the Superior Court will not consider it for the first time on appeal.
Facing Criminal Charges? We Can Help.
Goldstein Mehta LLC Criminal Defense
If you are facing criminal charges or under investigation by the police, we can help. We have successfully defended thousands of clients in jury trials, bench trials, preliminary hearings, and appeals in state and federal court. We have won cases involving the most serious charges, including first-degree murder, and we have obtained new trials and sentencing relief for our clients through direct appeals and PCRA petitions. We offer a free criminal defense strategy session to anyone who is facing charges or who may be under investigation. Call 267-225-2545 to speak with an experienced and understanding defense attorney today.
PA Superior Court: No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Bag Left in the Open Bed of a Pickup Truck Where Defendant Had No Connection to the Truck
Zak T. Goldstein, Esquire - Criminal Defense Attorney in Philadelphia
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has decided Commonwealth v. Serrano, 2026 PA Super 205 (Pa. Super. Sept. 18, 2026), holding that the trial court erred in suppressing a gun that police found in a bag in the open bed of a parked pickup truck. The Commonwealth produced evidence that the defendant’s only connection to the truck was that he stood next to it, and he did not present any evidence to the contrary. The Court concluded that he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the truck and that he abandoned the bag when he left it there and ran. It did not decide whether the open bed of a pickup truck should receive the same protection as the inside of a vehicle in a case where a defendant actually establishes a connection to the truck.
What happened in Commonwealth v. Serrano?
On August 26, 2024, two uniformed Philadelphia police officers received a call from another officer who had seen the defendant near Reese and Somerset Streets with a black fanny pack. The officers ran a warrant search and found an active arrest warrant. When they arrived, they saw the defendant crouching behind a parked pickup truck. One officer asked to speak with him, and he ran. Police arrested him after a brief chase. He did not have keys to the truck.
Meanwhile, the second officer looked around the truck and saw a black satchel on the floor of the open truck bed. He reached in, took the bag to the police car, searched it, and found a gun. The officer did not have a search warrant. The officers testified that the defendant was not holding the bag when they arrived.
The Commonwealth charged the defendant with three firearms/VUFA offenses, and he moved to suppress. The suppression court granted the motion under the Pennsylvania Constitution. It reasoned that society would treat the bed of a pickup truck as part of the vehicle, with the same expectation of privacy as the interior. It also found that the Commonwealth did not meet its initial burden of showing that the defendant lacked a privacy interest in the truck. In the court’s view, the only evidence on that point was the absence of keys, and the defendant could have been spending time outside his home in his neighborhood. The Commonwealth appealed.
The Superior Court’s Ruling
The Superior Court reversed. Under Commonwealth v. Enimpah, 106 A.3d 695 (Pa. 2014), the Commonwealth bears the initial burden of producing evidence that the defendant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. The defendant then bears the burden of persuasion. The Court found that the suppression court did not consider the totality of the circumstances and wrongly treated the question as one of ownership. A person who does not own a vehicle may still have a reasonable expectation of privacy in it if he lawfully possesses or controls it. Commonwealth v. Anderson, 340 A.3d 297 (Pa. 2025).
Here, the Court found that the Commonwealth showed more than missing keys. The officers did not see anyone in the truck, no one claimed it, no one saw the defendant operate it, and his only apparent connection to it was that he stood near it. He did not introduce any evidence linking himself to the truck. The Court relied on Commonwealth v. Millner, 888 A.2d 680 (Pa. 2005), in which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a defendant who stood beside a parked car and tossed items into it did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car. In the cases the defense cited, the police saw the defendant inside the vehicle. The Court did criticize the Commonwealth, noting “with displeasure” that it never ran the truck’s registration and that running the registration could have made things a lot easier for everyone.
The Court then turned to the bag. A defendant cannot maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in property he has abandoned. Leaving property in a place open to the public is not enough. The evidence must also show that the person tried to dissociate himself from it. The Court found that showing here because the defendant walked away from the truck and the bag when the police approached, ran, and did nothing to suggest that he intended to come back for it.
Because the defendant did not have a privacy interest in the truck, the Court declined to decide whether an open truck bed is protected like the rest of the vehicle. In a footnote, it said that the defendant might have prevailed on that argument, but that the question requires analysis because the Fourth Amendment does not protect what a person knowingly exposes to the public.
The Takeaway
Serrano is a reminder that the defendant carries the ultimate burden on the expectation of privacy. When police find a gun or drugs in a car that is not registered to the client, and the client was not inside it, the defense should be prepared to present evidence connecting him to it. Without it, the Commonwealth can meet its burden by showing that the police did not find any link between the defendant and the place they searched. It is also a reminder that people who run and throw contraband are usually worse off for a motion to suppress than people who remain calm and do not run away.
The decision also leaves room for future litigation. The Court left open whether the police need a warrant to take property from an open truck bed when the defendant has a connection to the truck. And abandonment only helps the Commonwealth when the police acted lawfully. Here, the police had an arrest warrant. Where the police unlawfully seize someone and he discards property in response, the forced abandonment doctrine requires suppression, as the Superior Court held two days earlier in Commonwealth v. Thomas, 2026 PA Super 202. This defendant may have lost either way. If the police found the warrant, they likely could have searched him incident to arrest, and if the gun was on him, they would have found it. But running away will usually not improve your case.
Facing Criminal Charges or Appealing a Criminal Case in Pennsylvania? We Can Help.
Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak T. Goldstein, Esquire
If you are facing criminal charges or under investigation by the police, we can help. We have successfully defended thousands of clients against criminal charges in courts throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We have successfully obtained full acquittals and dismissals in cases involving charges such as Conspiracy, Aggravated Assault, Rape, Violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, and First-Degree Murder. We have also won criminal appeals and PCRAs in state and federal court, including the successful direct appeal of a first-degree murder conviction and the exoneration of a client who spent 33 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Our award-winning Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers offer a free criminal defense strategy session to any potential client. Call 267-225-2545 to speak with an experienced and understanding defense attorney today.
PA Superior Court: No Mere Encounter Where Officer Pointed Gun At Suspect (Obviously)
Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak T. Goldstein, Esquire
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has decided Commonwealth v. Thomas, 2026 PA Super 202 (Pa. Super. Sept. 16, 2026), holding that a Philadelphia police officer seized the defendant when he approached him with his gun drawn. The officer claimed that he only asked for identification, but he did not turn on his body camera until after the chase ended, and the suppression court did not believe him. Because a reasonable person would not feel free to walk away from an officer holding a gun, the Superior Court affirmed the order suppressing the firearm that the defendant discarded before he ran.
What happened in Commonwealth v. Thomas?
On May 16, 2024, an officer setting up narcotics surveillance saw the defendant walk by with a rectangular bulge near his hip that, according to the officer, moved like an unholstered gun. He put out a radio call that the man might have a gun. A second officer, who was alone, out of uniform, and driving an unmarked car, responded to the 3900 block of North Smedley Street. He testified that the defendant picked up the pace, so he got out to try to engage him in a mere encounter and ask for identification. According to the officer, the defendant bladed his body away, dipped down behind a parked car, and ran. Police caught him after a chase, and the officer recovered a gun from the wheel well of the parked car.
As is typical, the officer’s body camera video did not have any sound for the first minute. When the defendant began to stand back up from behind the parked car, the officer had his gun in his right hand, pointed chest-high across the car towards him. The officer testified that the gun was initially pointed up and that he lowered it when the defendant ran.
The suppression court first denied the motion, finding a mere encounter that turned into a stop supported by reasonable suspicion when the defendant dipped behind the car. The defense moved for reconsideration, and the court amended its findings. It found that the officer approached with his gun out and that, without audio, it could not know what he actually said. The court cited a Philadelphia police directive that requires officers to activate their cameras before conducting any pedestrian investigation, found that the officer deliberately failed to do so, and did not credit his testimony about what he said. It granted the motion, and the Commonwealth appealed to the Superior Court.
The Superior Court’s Ruling
The Superior Court first considered sua sponte whether the suppression court had jurisdiction to reverse itself more than 30 days after its original order. It did because a pre-trial suppression order is interlocutory and the 30-day limit in 42 Pa.C.S. § 5505 does not apply. Commonwealth v. James, 69 A.3d 180 (Pa. 2013). The Court did not endorse the procedure because Rule 581(J) makes the denial of a suppression motion final absent previously unavailable evidence, but the Commonwealth did not preserve that challenge.
On the merits, police may generally use abandoned property as evidence, but not where unlawful police action coerced the abandonment. Commonwealth v. Lewis, 343 A.3d 1016 (Pa. 2025). On appeal, the Commonwealth argued only that the interaction was a mere encounter and did not claim that the officer had reasonable suspicion. The question therefore became whether a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would have felt free to leave.
The Court held that he would not. An officer may approach someone in public and ask for identification without any suspicion, but the display of a weapon is one of the recognized factors that turns an encounter into a seizure. The video supported the finding that the officer activated his camera only after he had approached, chased, and apprehended the defendant, and the suppression court did not commit a clear and manifest error by discrediting him on that basis. The officer’s testimony that his gun was initially pointed up supported the conclusion that he pointed it towards the defendant before the defendant dipped down.
The Commonwealth argued that the defendant never saw the gun because he had turned away and was wearing a hood. The Court disagreed. The video does not show the defendant during the first six seconds after the officer got out of the car, and the Court found it reasonable to infer that he bladed away because he saw the gun. The Commonwealth also argued that the officer reasonably held his gun at his side for his safety. The Court responded that the question is whether a reasonable person would feel free to ignore the officer, not whether the officer acted reasonably for his safety. The Court affirmed. Judge Sullivan noted a dissent.
The Takeaway
Thomas is a helpful case for anyone charged with possessing a gun or drugs that the police recovered after a chase. Under Pennsylvania’s forced abandonment doctrine, if the police unlawfully seize someone and he throws something away in response, the Commonwealth cannot use it. Where an officer does not follow the body camera directive, defense counsel should ask the court to consider that failure in deciding whether to believe him.
Facing Criminal Charges or Appealing a Criminal Case in Pennsylvania? We Can Help.
Goldstein Mehta LLC Criminal Defense
If you are facing criminal charges or under investigation by the police, we can help. We have successfully defended thousands of clients against criminal charges in courts throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We have successfully obtained full acquittals and dismissals in cases involving charges such as Conspiracy, Aggravated Assault, Rape, Violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, and First-Degree Murder. We have also won criminal appeals and PCRAs in state and federal court, including the successful direct appeal of a first-degree murder conviction and the exoneration of a client who spent 33 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Our award-winning Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers offer a free criminal defense strategy session to any potential client. Call 267-225-2545 to speak with an experienced and understanding defense attorney today.
Philadelphia Bench Warrants: How to Get a Bench Warrant Lifted
Bench warrants don't go away on their own. Our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers can help get a bench warrant lifted.
Bench Warrants in Philadelphia, PA
A bench warrant is a judge’s order for your arrest because you missed court. It does not expire, and ignoring it does not make it go away. In Philadelphia, there are two ways to resolve one: turn yourself in and have a hearing, or have a lawyer ask the court and the District Attorney’s Office to lift the warrant without you appearing. For older cases and for clients who live out of state, we can often get the warrant lifted, and sometimes the whole case withdrawn, without the client ever returning to Philadelphia. Call or text 267-225-2545 for a free warrant check.
A bench warrant is a serious problem. The judge can revoke your bail, keep the money you posted, hold you in contempt, and send you to jail for missing court. Our Philadelphia bench warrant lawyers can help you get the warrant lifted, whether that means arranging a surrender and representing you at the hearing or asking the court to lift the warrant without you appearing at all. This page explains how bench warrants work in Pennsylvania. Every case is different, so call us for advice on yours.
What will happen if I don’t go to court?
Zak T. Goldstein, Esq. - Criminal Defense Lawyer for Lifting a Bench Warrant in PA
If you are a defendant and miss your court date without telling the court, the judge will almost certainly issue a bench warrant. When the police eventually arrest you on the warrant, the judge could also hold you in contempt and revoke your bail. The same could be true for a witness in a case. The Commonwealth does not always seek to arrest its witnesses when the witnesses fail to appear, but in some cases, the Commonwealth could obtain a material witness warrant for you if you were subpoenaed for court to testify as a witness and failed to appear.
What is a bench warrant?
A bench warrant is an order issued by the judge directing any law enforcement officers with whom you come into contact to arrest you. If the police stop you for anything, even a traffic stop, and run your name, they will see the warrant and arrest you. An open warrant can also show up on an employment background check, and customs officers can detain you when you re-enter the United States, even decades later.
Are there any other punishments for missing court?
Philadelphia Bench Warrant Lawyer
Sooner or later, the police will arrest you or you will decide to turn yourself in. When you go before a judge to have the warrant lifted, there are other potential punishments that the judge could impose. The judge could hold you in contempt and sentence you to a fine or up to six months in jail. The judge could also revoke your bail as a flight risk or raise it so that you have to pay more to get out. If the court forfeits your bail, you could owe the city or county a large amount of money. In most counties in Pennsylvania, the defendant or the surety actually pays 10% of the bail amount. This means that if bail is set at $100,000, then the defendant would have to pay $10,000 in order to be released. If a judge finds that the defendant willfully missed court, then the defendant could be required to post the other $90,000.
How can I get a bench warrant lifted?
There are two ways to get a bench warrant lifted. You can turn yourself in and have a hearing, or a lawyer can ask the court to lift the warrant without you appearing. Which option is realistic depends on the court, the charges, and how long the warrant has been open. We cover the second option below. If you turn yourself in, Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 150 says the court cannot hold you longer than 72 hours without a bench warrant hearing before a judge or commissioner. If the 72 hours runs out on a weekend or holiday, the court must hold the hearing by the close of the next business day. The judge who conducts the bench warrant hearing will lift the bench warrant and determine whether to reinstate and release you on the same bail, revoke bail, or raise the bail. Additionally, the prosecution may move for contempt, in which case you would have a contempt hearing.
In Philadelphia, you turn yourself in at a courtroom in the Criminal Justice Center. You must arrive early in the morning. The court will usually see you that day, and many of our clients go home the same day. Judges almost always treat you better if you come in voluntarily with a lawyer than if the police bring you in. If the police arrest you on the warrant instead, they will take you to the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, and you will wait there until the bench warrant judge sees you by video from the prison.
Can a lawyer get my bench warrant lifted without me turning myself in?
Often, yes. Since the pandemic, Philadelphia courts have allowed defense lawyers to ask the court to lift a bench warrant without requiring the defendant to surrender first. The process usually works like this. We pull your docket and confirm the warrant. We contact the assigned assistant district attorney, explain why you missed court, and show what has happened in your life since. If the District Attorney’s Office agrees, the judge can lift the warrant based on the filings and give you a new court date without you setting foot in the Criminal Justice Center. If the judge denies the request, you would still have to turn yourself in and have a hearing, but you would do it with counsel and a plan.
This works best in Municipal Court cases (misdemeanors and preliminary hearings) and in older cases. In Court of Common Pleas cases, the request goes to the judge assigned to your case rather than the bench warrant judge, and judges differ in how they handle it. For serious felony charges, the court will usually insist that you appear. Counties outside Philadelphia handle this differently, and many now allow a lawyer to file a motion to lift the warrant instead of requiring a surrender.
What is a judge-only bench warrant?
A judge-only bench warrant means that when you get arrested on the warrant or turn yourself in, your bench warrant hearing will be held before the judge that originally issued the warrant. In Philadelphia, if you receive a normal bench warrant, then the warrant will be addressed by whichever judge happens to be assigned to bench warrant court on the day that you have your hearing. If you receive a judge-only warrant, then you will have the warrant addressed by the judge who issued it.
How long can they hold me on a bench warrant?
Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 150 provides that the court cannot hold you on a bench warrant for more than 72 hours without a hearing, or past the close of the next business day if the 72 hours runs out on a weekend or holiday. Once the warrant is lifted, you could still be held if the judge raises or revokes your bail. This is true both for criminal defendants and material witnesses. If the police arrest you in a different county from the one that issued the warrant, it can take longer. The jail in the arresting county must notify the issuing county, and the 72-hour limit in Rule 150 applies to detention in the county that issued the warrant.
What happens after the bench warrant is lifted?
Once the bench warrant is lifted, the judge will schedule the case for the next hearing. If you missed your preliminary hearing, then the judge would schedule the case for the preliminary hearing. If you missed your trial date, then the case would be scheduled for trial. It is relatively rare, but in some cases, the court may conduct a hearing or trial in your absence if the court finds that you willfully failed to appear. So it is possible, though unlikely, that a judge already found you guilty in absentia. If that happened, the court could require you to serve the sentence. You may still be able to appeal, but the clock runs from the sentencing, and a defendant who stays a fugitive past the appeal deadline can forfeit the right to appeal. The sooner you come forward, the more options you have.
How can I find out if I have a bench warrant?
If you missed court as a defendant, you almost certainly have a bench warrant. We can check for you in minutes. Call or text 267-225-2545 for a free warrant check. If you are facing criminal charges and have a bench warrant, we are happy to look it up for you and discuss representation in the case and getting the warrant lifted. You can also check the public court dockets by searching for your name at https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/CP.aspx. If you have a bench warrant, it will typically be indicated on the docket.
What if my bench warrant is years old?
An old bench warrant is still an active warrant. Bench warrants in Pennsylvania do not expire, and the court will not clear one just because time passed. We regularly hear from people who learn about a ten- or twenty-year-old warrant when they apply for a job, renew a license, or come back through customs at the airport.
The age of the warrant cuts both ways. The police can still arrest you on it. But if the case was minor, you have stayed out of trouble, and you can show the prosecutor what you have done with your life since, the age of the case becomes your best argument. Witnesses move, officers retire, and evidence disappears, so the District Attorney’s Office often has little interest in trying a decades-old misdemeanor.
In these cases we put together a mitigation package for the assigned prosecutor: a letter explaining what happened and why you missed court, proof of employment, letters from family, employers, or people in your community, treatment records where they help, and your clean record since the case. Based on that package, the District Attorney’s Office will often agree to have the warrant lifted administratively so that nobody has to arrest you. In some cases, the prosecutor agrees to withdraw the charges altogether, as happened in the K.E. case below. If the Commonwealth withdraws the charges, you can then petition to have the arrest record expunged.
I live out of state or in another country. Do I have to come back to Philadelphia?
Not always. Many of our bench warrant clients live in other states or overseas, and in less serious cases we are often able to resolve the warrant without the client traveling to Philadelphia. We handle the entire process by phone, email, and video. You send us the documents for the mitigation package, we deal with the District Attorney’s Office and the court, and you hear the result from us.
If the court lifts the warrant, one of two things happens. Either the court schedules the case for its next hearing, and we then work out whether you need to appear in person or whether the case can be resolved without you, or the Commonwealth withdraws the case. If the court does require you to appear, we schedule the date in advance so that you know exactly what to expect and can usually be in and out of the courthouse the same day.
Ignoring the warrant because you live far away is a mistake. The warrant follows you. It can appear on background checks, customs officers can detain you when you re-enter the United States, and if the police stop you in another state, they can hold you while Pennsylvania decides whether to bring you back. For a minor case Pennsylvania may decline to extradite, but you could still spend days in a local jail while that gets sorted out. Dealing with the warrant on your schedule, with a lawyer, is always better than dealing with it on theirs.
Case Study: Twenty-Year-Old Bench Warrant Lifted and Charges Dismissed Without Returning to Philadelphia
In Commonwealth v. K.E., Attorney Zak Goldstein represented a client who learned that he had a twenty-year-old bench warrant for knowing and intentional possession of a controlled substance. Police had arrested K.E. about twenty years earlier in two misdemeanor drug cases in different counties at around the same time. Although K.E. resolved one of the drug charges through participation in a treatment program, K.E. did not realize that he still had an outstanding warrant when he left the program.
K.E. moved out of state, rebuilt his life, and eventually obtained a job as a professional which required a great deal of travel for work. Over the years, customs officers detained K.E. for up to 24 hours when he re-entered the country after business trips, but nobody ever arrested him or told him he had a warrant and pending charges. Police had even stopped him for traffic tickets without telling him about the warrant. When returning from a recent trip, K.E. learned that he had a bench warrant from the old drug case and immediately contacted Attorney Goldstein.
Attorney Goldstein put together a mitigation packet for the District Attorney's Office showing that K.E. completed drug treatment at the time, had remained clean for twenty years, and had gone on to have a successful career in another state. After receiving the packet, the District Attorney's Office agreed to lift the bench warrant and dismiss the charges without requiring K.E. to return to Philadelphia.
Why should I retain a Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyer for help with my bench warrant?
Our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers have represented thousands of clients in criminal cases and have resolved bench warrants for clients in Philadelphia, across the country, and overseas. Each case is different, and we never guarantee results, but you will almost always do better if you retain counsel and come forward on your own terms than if the police pick you up. In many cases, the judge reinstates our client’s bail and releases the client the same day. We offer a free criminal defense strategy session to any potential client. Call or text 267-225-2545 to discuss your case today.
Goldstein Mehta LLC: Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyers
