Las Vegas Sex Crimes Defense Attorney

The penalties for sex crimes have become extremely harsh for people convicted of such crimes as lewdness with a minor, statutory sexual seduction or statutory rape, sexual assault, and sexual assault of a minor.  All these offenses carry with them lifetime registration as a sex offender.  Most carry prison sentences of life with parole eligibility after 20 to 35 years of incarceration depending on the age of the person whom the DA accuses you of sexually molesting.  Sex offender registration is mandatory for these types of crimes and allows people to look on the internet and see that you have been convicted of a sex crime and informs anyone with access to the internet of where you live.  Just recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain defendants convicted of sexual offenses could be “civilly committed” beyond their prison sentences.  In other words, if a defendant serves his time, he is not free to leave after the expiration of his sentence if the attorney general certifies that he presents an extreme danger to the community.  Finally a conviction for a sexual offense is one which can never been expunged or sealed.  Such a conviction severely limits your chances of getting a good job since hardly any employer wants to run the risk that they can be sued for recklessly hiring a convicted sex offender as this presents too much liability for the potential employer.  I have been able to work out great plea agreements for the overwhelming majority of my clients where if they are successful in completing probation with sex offender registration, they are allowed to withdraw their guilty plea to the sexual offense and plead guilty to a gross misdemeanor non-sexual offense which does not require sex offender registration.  This is a great deal for them because once they complete their probation and receive the reduction to the non-sexual offense, they no longer need to register and report as sex offenders.  And after 7 years, they are able to have their convictions for the gross misdemeanor sealed so no one will ever know about their prior conviction because the reduced charge is a non-sexual criminal conviction unlike a sexual criminal conviction which cannot be sealed.  But it’s important to remember that an accusation or an arrest is not a conviction.  For instance, recently I represented a client accused of rape and got the charges completely dropped.  Another client was accused of lewdness with a minor and I was able to get the charges completely dropped.