Author: William Proetta Criminal Law

Arrested in a School Zone in NJ, Is it Worse? New Jersey law is highly protective of schools and schoolchildren. As a result, if you are convicted of certain crimes committed in close proximity to school property—an area known as a “school zone”—the penalties that you face are often much harsher than the penalties you […]

Need a New Brunswick Defense Lawyer for Charges from a Drug Raid Most people have seen photographs of videos of drug raids in the newspaper or on TV. They can be dramatic. Police may use a ram to bust open the door, order everyone in a building to the floor, and begin collecting evidence and […]

Getting arrested for or caught shoplifting can be embarrassing in the moment, and, even worse, can leave you with a criminal record that may show up on background checks run by subsequent employers. If you have been accused of shoplifting in Ocean County, NJ, you may be wondering how the state can prove that you meant to […]

Assuming that you are not acting in lawful self-defense, attacking another person, attempting to do so, and a host of other conduct can result in a criminal conviction for assault in New Jersey. If you harm someone badly in that attack, you may even be convicted of aggravated assault, a more serious assault offense. The […]

Have you ever heard the term “drug kingpin?” Under the law, a drug kingpin is any person who controls a network of others involved in the drug trade. Usually, a drug kingpin is only prosecuted after lengthy investigation and potential undercover work in their organization. Investigators and prosecutors usually try to “flip” people who become […]

Sometimes a night out just gets away from you. Causing property damage may be an accident, it may be the furthest thing from your mind, or you may not have done it at all. Unfortunately, vandalism and other offenses resulting in damage to someone else’s property can lead to serious penalties under the law. Let’s […]

As more and more states legalize or decriminalize the possession and use of marijuana, it can be easy to forget that some states, including New Jersey, still enforce laws that severely penalize marijuana offenses. Possession of marijuana is still prohibited by New Jersey’s general-purpose law banning the possession of all controlled dangerous substances without a […]

You’ve undoubtedly seen and heard it before. Police arrest a suspect for a crime. We all know the words that come next. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you. But what happens if a police officer fails to read you your rights in New Jersey? People charged […]

Almost all of us have friends or acquaintances who take recreational drugs like marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy in some form or another. Say one of these friends offers you a ride home and they have a stash of drugs in their car. You get pulled over. The police find the drugs. Can you be charged and […]

They say that no good deed goes unpunished. This can certainly be true in New Jersey if you do a favor for a friend and loan her or him your car, only to later find out that your friend was driving without a valid license. You can be convicted of a traffic offense carrying stiff […]