Van Nuys Escort Without a License, Bench Warrant Since 2005
In 2005, our client was twenty-five years old and a recent immigrant from Russia. She was a model with very little work and trying to enter into acting as an extra, as her poor English meant she could not have more significant roles.
One day when she was in Starbucks in North Hollywood, she met another woman who convinced our client to earn money as an escort, telling her it was a good way to meet Hollywood movie directors and producers. Our client, naïve and desperate for money, agreed.
Soon she was posing at a movie studio in various forms of undress and an advertisement for her services was placed in / on Backpage.com. Our client had no idea what she was getting into.
On her first “escort service” job, she was arrested at a Van Nuys hotel by the police and taken to the Los Angeles Police Department Valley Station Jail near the Van Nuys Courthouse.
Our client was booked on suspicion of violating Los Angeles Municipal Code § 103.107.1(B), working as an escort without a license or a permit, which is a misdemeanor. It was an odd charge to arrest someone for, but it fit, as our client never agreed to exchange sexual services for money, but her advertisement certainly suggested this, but she did not have a city-issued escort license.
When our client was released from jail, she signed a promise to appear in the Van Nuys Superior Court in about a month, but she never did. She did not understand there was any obligation to show up in court and thought her spending a night in jail was the punishment and nothing more would follow.
She later moved to Florida and met a U.S. Air Force airman, who she married. Our client later went on to college, eventually earning a nursing degree from Oxford and settling down in Destin, Florida with her family, which included a daughter.
When it came time for her to work at one of the hospitals in Destin, the hospital ran her background and discovered the outstanding bench warrant for $50,000 in Los Angeles County.
Our client was shocked that such a warrant was still outstanding, as she assumed it would be “cancelled” after a few years. She was also concerned that being convicted of such a crime may have adverse immigration consequences, as she was trying to become a U.S. citizen.
She called up Greg Hill & Associates and spoke with Greg Hill about the warrant and whether she had to pay $50,000 to have the case dismissed. Greg explained that no, that was not the fine and how he could appear on her behalf to have the warrant recalled.
Greg noted that the judicial officer who had issued the warrant was still a judicial officer in Van Nuys and had the reputation of requiring the defendant to appear in person to have the warrant recalled and quashed. However, Greg noted, he may not be assigned to handle the case 18 years later. It could go to a different judge who would not require this.
Greg further explained how once the warrant was recalled, the case might be eligible for dismissal under a “Serna Motion” (Serna v. Superior Court (1995) 40 Cal.3d 239, 707 P.2d 793, 219 Cal.Rptr. 420). which is a motion to dismiss for violation of one’s right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the constitution for the State of California.
Greg also explained how such a motion may be denied if our client signed a promise to appear in court, but then did not honor her signed promise. Nonetheless, sometimes, the prosecution will consider the age of the case and run our client’s criminal history and dismiss the case anyways, as an arresting officer, the witness to the crime, most likely would not recall the facts of the case almost twenty years later.
The client then hired Greg Hill & Associates and Greg appeared in the Van Nuys Superior Court to have the bench warrant recalled. Luckily, the case was not assigned to the judicial officer who had originally issued the warrant in 2005. The judge assigned to the case 18 years later recalled the bench warrant.
The Los Angeles City Attorney assigned to the case did not have our client’s file with him and asked for time to find it.
So, the arraignment was continued for six weeks to allow the Los Angeles City Attorney more time to find their file concerning our client’s case.
After six weeks, Greg appeared again in the Van Nuys courthouse on the case, but the Los Angeles City Attorney still had not found their file. Accordingly, the arraignment was continued for another four weeks to give the prosecution more time to fine the file.
Finally, Greg appeared again and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office had the client’s file. Greg and the handling prosecutor looked through the file, which included photographs of our client that were not G-rated. It also included a photocopy of a promise to appear, signed by our client in 2005.
Greg was pessimistic that the case would be resolved easily and certainly not through a Serna motion, as hoped. The prosecutor then asked what our client was doing with her life now and Greg explained her success and her hopes of becoming a licensed nurse, as well as a U.S. citizen.
The prosecutor then ran our client’s rap sheet and found our client had no subsequent contacts with law enforcement. She graciously agreed to dismiss the case in the interests of justice under Penal Code § 1385.
Our client was ecstatic over this decision. Greg explained that such a dismissal meant the client was now eligible to have the arrest record and court file “sealed,” which meant the record of the ignominious arrest and filing could be deleted or erased from her record under a petition to seal under Penal Code §§ 851.91 and 851.92.
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