What Are Effective Defense Strategies in Sex Crime Cases in Illinois? Facing sex crime charges in the state of Illinois? Attorneys Joshua Boardman and Andrew Russek from Combs Waterkotte discuss potential strategies a defense attorney could use in an Illinois sex crimes case.
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Interview Transcript
Scott Michael Dunn: What are some effective defense strategies against being accused of a sexual crime?
Joshua Boardman: One that immediately comes to mind if the alleged victim is also an adult is the defense of consent. If that is going to be the defense in the case, you may have had sexual intercourse with the witness or alleged victim, but you’re asserting that there was consent for that sexual conduct. To prove that up — did the text messages or social media posts or things… was there a trail of conversations that would cast any doubt or affect the credibility of someone claiming that you participated in this type of action. Also, did the alleged victim contact you afterwards with any sort of language and text messages or pictures or videos or anything like that, that would demonstrate that maybe this circumstances claimed really did not occur. So you want to be thinking what can the accused do? What can the defendant do to create doubt and attack the credibility of the person that’s telling their story to the judge or the jury?
Andrew Russek: There, there could be an alibi. ‘I wasn’t even there.’ And in that situation, often we see these cases where they did have, there was sexual interaction of some sort. So, maybe looking at the motive for why the individual would later be claiming it was rape, whether it’s a social or a financial motive. We see that a lot, potentially other witnesses who were maybe at the party and saw a certain interaction that makes it more questionable if it was rape or maybe it was consent. I mean, these cases can be very complex and very sensitive because of your inherently talking about an intimate thing, whether it was true or not.
Dunn: How important is it to contact an attorney?
Boardman: Incredibly important. That should be one of the very first things that you do. Because they’ll have an understanding of crafting defenses and what types of information or details you need to be providing or going back and searching to build those defenses. Like Andrew said, talking to eyewitnesses if that’s applicable, looking into your text messages or social media, if that’s applicable. But it’s critical that you immediately contact an attorney even if you’re accused or you catch wind of someone wanting to talk to you about events that may have occurred.
