On January 12, 2018, authorities announced that a woman from Saddle Brook was criminally charged with witness tampering following a police investigation. The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office received information on January 8, 2017, that two victims of sexual assault were being pressured to renounce allegations they had made to law enforcement about the events that took place. Bergen County prosecutor, Gurbir S. Grewal, explained that the Saddle Brook Police Department and prosecutor’s office Special Victims Unit interviewed several people in regards to the possibility of witness tampering. The woman was both arrested and charged with a third-degree crime of witness tampering.
In New Jersey, you can be convicted of witness tampering if you know that an official investigation is pending and, among other things, you attempt to convince a witness to testify falsely, withhold testimony or other information, including documents, avoid a subpoena to testify or, otherwise, obstruct or interfere with the proceeding or investigation. Ordinarily, a “tampering” charge is a crime of the third-degree, which has a sentencing range of 3 to 5 years of jail time. If force or coercion is used, however, the criminal activity can be elevated to a first or second-degree crime.
Clearly, if you have been charged with a criminal offense of witness tampering in the context of a sexual assault investigation, a serious and aggressive defense lawyer should be engaged as soon as practical.
Frank T. Luciano has been working as a criminal defense lawyer for over 40 years and has represented a number of defendants in cases relating to sexual assaults, witness tampering and obstructing justice. He is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and a lifetime member of the legal committee for National Organization of the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML). You can determine his commitment to his client and their cases by reading the Testimonials Section of this website.