In addition to potential prison time and heavy financial fines, you might have to deal with damage to your personal and professional reputation if you are convicted for embezzlement. Other people might no longer want to associate with you. With a criminal record for embezzling, you could lose your job or find it challenging to obtain new employment.
Fighting the charges with a Winter Garden embezzlement lawyer is essential. A dedicated fraud defense attorney could give your case the individualized time and personal attention that it deserves, as we work to reach a satisfactory resolution.
Embezzlement is a white-collar crime. Unlike some other states, Florida does not have a statute that explicitly defines what embezzlement is. Instead, Florida Statutes § 812.014 addresses the crime of embezzlement under the general theft statute because embezzlement is a type of theft. Whereas most theft crimes involve the wrongful taking of someone else’s property or money, embezzlement is different because it involves the fraudulent appropriation of property or money that the accused embezzler, at one point, had some sort of control over.
Embezzlement is a crime that involves a violation of trust. The accused embezzler misuses property that they were entrusted with, and many of these situations occur in business or financial settings. Some examples of embezzlement crimes include the following:
Embezzlement can be a one-time event, or it can involve a scheme that takes place over a lengthy period of time involving many different parties. The penalties can vary significantly, depending on the value of the item or funds taken. These charges can result in first-, second-, or third-degree felonies, and the higher the value of the allegedly stolen items, the more serious the charges and resulting penalties.
Our Winter Garden legal team could explain the embezzlement charges that you face and the resulting penalties if found guilty.
As a criminal defendant, you do not have to prove that you are innocent. The burden of proof is only with the prosecution who needs to show that you committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. There are a couple of defenses we could pursue.
To succeed with the case, the prosecution must produce sufficient evidence to prove that an embezzlement crime occurred. Typically, prosecutors rely on both paper evidence indicating that a crime has occurred and the testimony of people, such as your coworkers, subordinates, associates, supervisors, bosses, customers, or clients, who might have witnessed the alleged embezzlement. These people might testify about what they saw, and your behavior and actions leading up to the alleged crime.
Our embezzlement defense attorneys in Winter Garden could examine every piece of the prosecution’s evidence to look for inconsistencies. It may be possible to poke holes in the prosecution’s story to show that they did not meet their burden of proof.
Our dedicated legal team could also help you clear up any misunderstandings. Sometimes, people face these charges for taking something that they reasonably believed they had the right to possess. Our criminal defense lawyers could establish that you took something by mistake instead of with the intent to deprive the actual owner of it.
Because every criminal case has unique circumstances and facts, it is critical to work with a legal team who is willing to delve deeply into understanding what happened in order to find the defense strategy that best fits your case.
Despite what you might hope, an embezzlement charge will likely not just go away on its own. You need to fight those charges with a skilled legal professional who has experience in this field.
Meet with a Winter Garden embezzlement lawyer today who could work tirelessly in the hopes of obtaining you the best possible result.
The Umansky Law Firm Criminal Defense & Injury Attorneys
