State.v. Mr. A. (DMC No. 16277) – Felony Sexual Assault – Not Charged –
Flagstaff Police Department Investigated (DR No. 20XX-XXXX3).
When Mr. A retained the services of our Firm, he was a young man in college as well as a member of a fraternity. He retained our services after learning from his fraternity chapter president, that a woman he had sex with was now claiming the sex was not consensual. Due to these allegations, the fraternity was taking action against him.
After being retained, the Pre-Charge Team immediately met and put together a plan of action for both the fraternity trial along with the pre-charge criminal conduct. The Pre-Charge Team, met and immediately contacted the fraternity president asking him to delay the fraternity trial, as there were only accusations made at this point, and Mr. A was presumed innocent until proven guilty. We were successful at getting the fraternity trial continued until the conclusion of the criminal matter. We then immediately reached out to the Flagstaff Police Department to find out what Detective was assigned to this investigation and the status of the same. After determining the Detective’s name, we emailed a copy of our client’s Invocation of Constitutional Rights. We immediately traveled to Flagstaff and conducted interviews of relevant witnesses that were present during the evening of the alleged Sexual Assault. These interviews included a number of fraternity and sorority members who were at the house and in close contact with Mr. A. and the alleged victim after the alleged “rape”.
After completing these interviews, we drafted a detailed Trebus Bashir Letter which listed 43 bullet points, with a multitude of sub-bullet points, regarding what transpired that evening, Mr. A’s denial of the claims of non-consensual sex, along with additional information we believed the Detective would find useful in making a charging decision. We also immediately got our client in for a Polygraph examination which was included as part of the Trebus Bashir Letter. The Polygraph questions focused on whether Mr. A had any sexual contact with the alleged victim without her consent and whether Mr. A ever forced the alleged victim to have sex with him. No deception was indicated as part of Mr. A’s Polygraph results.
After submitting all of this information to the Detective, it was determined that the information provided from the witnesses of that evening discredited the alleged victim’s statements of what occurred. As a result, the investigation was “closed exceptionally.”