Criminal Defense Attorney - Law Offices of Jerry Jenkins

Representing clients in Central Florida, Sanford, Tavares, Orlando, and surrounding areas, Jerry Jenkins is an intelligent criminal defense attorney who is dedicated to providing excellent representation to his clients. Jerry understands that once a person is involved in the criminal justice system each and every decision matters. The decisions a person within the criminal justice makes will have lifelong consequences not only on the person making it, but their family and friends too. These decisions should not be taken lightly as they can affect every aspect of your life from employment to housing. You need an attorney who will fight for you and protect your rights.

You need an attorney who knows their way around the criminal justice system.

You need Jerry Jenkins.

Jerry understands each case and situation is unique. After providing him the facts, Jerry will give the advice and counsel you need to make an informed decision. With Jerry by your side, no stone will be left unturned. He will explore every avenue and make sure that your case is presented to the court. Jerry always strives to provide the best representation for his clients and he will defend you against all charges and any state crime allegations. After all, the government has experienced prosecutors targeting you, so you should have a defense attorney with the necessary experience fighting back.

Every situation is different, but the one piece of advice that will never change is to not waive any of your rights. If authorities begin grilling you with questions regarding a crime, be polite and decline to speak without a lawyer present. They will try to strong arm and intimidate you, but remain firm in your request to have a criminal defense lawyer present.

If you need any more information regarding criminal defense in Florida, contact Jerry Jenkins for a free case evaluation.

Judge says court battle over giant emerald can proceed

A Los Angeles judge has ruled a trial can go forward to determine ownership of an emerald weighing 840 pounds that was hauled out of a Brazilian mine more than a decade ago.
 
The 180,000-carat emerald is at the center of a court battle between gem traders, miners, real estate tycoons and others vying for the jewel once valued at $372 million.

The latest claim to ownership came from the Brazil government, which wants the gem returned to its country of origin.

The Los Angeles Times reports Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson said this week a motion by Brazil lacked sufficient evidence to warrant halting the case.

The jewel known as the Bahia Emerald is one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Ex-UBS banker pleads guilty in US tax evasion case

A former executive at Swiss bank UBS AG has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a long-running U.S. investigation into tax evasion using secret accounts.

Hansruedi Schumacher entered the plea Thursday before a Florida federal judge. Schumacher is cooperating in the investigation and in return, prosecutors will recommend a sentence of five years' probation and a $150,000 fine.

Schumacher admitted in court papers that while at UBS and a second Swiss bank from 1995 to 2009 he helped wealthy U.S. citizens escape the Internal Revenue Service using secret offshore accounts.

Several other bankers and dozens of customers have been prosecuted. UBS itself paid a $780 million fine to the U.S. in 2009 and agreed to disclose names of thousands of its American customers.

High court must fix special prosecutor process, lawyers say

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, not known for being shy about defending its prerogatives, has put itself in a curious situation.After months of intrigue and court silence, the justices surprised Pennsylvania's legal community by saying they would hear public arguments on Attorney General Kathleen Kane's legal challenge to the court's self-appointed power to launch special prosecutions.

The case in question is a court-ordered investigation into whether Kane's office illegally shared secret investigative material with the Philadelphia Daily News. The result was a grand jury's recommendation that Kane be charged with perjury and other offenses.

The justices may not ultimately agree with Kane that the courts lack the authority to appoint prosecutors to run grand juries or investigate her office. But, say lawyers and court watchers, the justices must at least clean up a murky and messy process that has been dogged by questions about legality and constitutionality.

NC Appeals Court says DOT must pay landowners

The North Carolina Court of Appeals says the state transportation department must pay some landowners whose property is in the path of a proposed road in Forsyth County.
 
Multiple media outlets reported that a three-judge panel of the court ruled Tuesday that a lower court was wrong to refuse to hear a lawsuit by 11 landowners who said the state's designation of their land in the proposed road's path hurt their property values.

There is no indication when the road might be built.

The 11 landowners say the state's designation of their property in the path of the planned road limits what they can do with the land.

The state attorney general's office is consulting with transportation officials on the ruling. They could appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court.

African leaders to court: Drop cases against top Africans

The International Criminal Court should drop or suspend charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto until African concerns about the court and proposals to change its founding treaty are considered, African leaders say.
 
The demand came in a report Saturday on previous decisions made by African Union leaders.

The African Union has accused the ICC of disproportionately targeting Africans. The court has indicted only Africans so far, although half of the eight cases it is prosecuting were referred to it by African governments themselves.

Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang have been charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged role in orchestrating Kenya's 2007-08 postelection violence. Their trial is underway at the ICC. More than 1,000 people died and 600,000 others were forced to flee their homes amid violence sparked by a flawed presidential election.

Similar charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta were dropped in December after the prosecution said it did not have enough evidence against him. Kenyatta and Ruto were on opposing sides of the postelection violence but joined forces to win the presidency in the March 2013 polls.

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Bashir for failing to respond to summons to answer to charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the violence in Darfur.

Anxiety over Supreme Court's latest dive into health care

Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme Court.

This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.

Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.

And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.

Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.

The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.

The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state.