In Los Angeles California animal abuse cases are taken very serious by everybody who comes in contact with them. They are a very politically charged issue and it's important that if you have an animal abuse case in LA you find an attorney who is familiar with how the authorities handle these cases and what can be done to mitigate the situation and your best interest.

When it's a felony case, the District Attorney's office will handle the animal abuse case. On the other hand, when it's a misdemeanor case, the City Attorney's office is going to be dealing with the case. What's special about these animal abuse cases — besides the fact that there's a lot of political pressure being placed on judges and prosecutors and law enforcement to deal with offenders of animal abuse cases in LA very harshly — is that they assign a special prosecutor to every single case — both the District Attorney's office and the City Attorney's office does that. Also, if you want to know how seriously they take these cases, you have to realize that not only are they assigning a special prosecutor to prosecute the case and follow the case, the District Attorney's office has an animal abuse hierarchy in the Downtown Hub Court where they have a head DA there, an assistant head and a bunch of deputy District Attorneys that only do animal abuse cases.

So, if you're charged with one of these cases you better take it seriously. Get an attorney who's been down this road before, knows how to deal with these cases and knows the tendencies of the judge and prosecutors related to animal abuse cases and who knows how to defend the case. Sometimes it's a situation where the animal is accidentally hurt. Sometimes it's a situation where it's not your fault that the animal has been injured, hurt or neglected in some way. In other words, sometimes there's more than meets the eye and the full story has not been gotten out there and the authorities do not know all the details and facts related to the case.

It's up to our defense attorney to tell them. Sometimes it's an accident that the animal was hurt. Sometimes somebody else is the one who hurt the animal. There are all sorts of different ways and angles that these cases can be dealt with. Sometimes we need to get an expert on a case to evaluate the animal, and a lot of times the veterinarian is the one who is calling the police related to an animal abuse or animal neglect-type case, so we need an expert to challenge their findings because sometimes they don't always get it right. They're speculating. They're looking at certain things and they might not be right about it.

So, there are defenses to these cases and there are also ways to mitigate the cases. Sometimes the authorities have the information. They have the evidence and they're going to be able to convict you, so we need to come up with some plan to get you some sort of a diversionary program to protect your record and to make sure the whole story is given to them about exactly what happened so they can evaluate everything and you can be in the best position to protect your rights, your reputation, your freedom and everything that is important to you, because this can affect your family and it can affect your job, and if you're charged and convicted of an animal abuse case, a lot of times we're looking for alternative sentences that take into account who you are and all the important things that surround you and your life.

So, if you have an animal abuse case, give me a call. Let's sit down and talk about it. Let's get a game plan together so we can get this thing dealt with as swiftly as possible and get you out of the criminal justice system as quickly as possible.