need advice re: possession by felon charge in KY

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

brownandgreen

Inactive
This is a bit long and involved, I apologize. And I will readily say upfront that I should have posted here with questions before the events described below, but hindsight is 20/20.

This summer my fiance and I moved across the country. My fiance is a felon from 14 years ago. I own several handguns and have always been cautious to make sure they were not "accessible" to him.

As part of the moving process, I hired a (non-felon) friend to drive my car and some of my belongings from my previous residence to my new one. Among my belongings that needed to be moved was a pistol. Because my fiance was accompanying the guy I hired to move my stuff, I called the ATF and asked if there was a legal way to transport the pistol in the car with my fiance (felon) also present.

I was told that the gun had to be in one locked case, the ammo in a separate locked case, in the trunk (not the cabin) of the car, and the non-felon had to retain possession of the case keys at all times. This was abided by.

During the trip, my fiance took over driving when the other guy got tired, and got pulled over in KY for going 77 in a 70. The cop was preparing to give a warning ticket, asked if there were any weapons in the car, and it was volunteered that there was a gun in the trunk. Both my fiance and the guy I hired explained the situation (the gun is mine, car is mine, guy was hired, guy had keys in his pocket, fiance had no access to keys) but long story short, the state of KY has charged my fiance with possession by a felon.

FWIW, the county was willing to drop the charges under the circumstances, but b/c my fiance's previous felony was for armed robbery - which he didn't do, but they don't care - the state refused to drop the charges @ pretrial.

The *state* is currently sitting on the charges. Apparently KY doesn't work like any other state, and they will take all his case info into a closed door meeting w/ a grand jury in December, and the grand jury will come back together in January to decide whether or not to prosecute.

So...I realize I should have simply sent it via FFL, but again, highsight = 20/20.

I need any and all advice, statutes, information, etc that I can get. I need to get it all into the hands of the prosecutor before this grand jury meeting in December. I know all you intelligent and educated people will have something useful to tell me!

TIA.
 
You know

You know already where you guys messed up, so I won't talk about it, just get yourself a lawyer; district attorneys are like bull terriers, they don't let go, they live for cases like this.

Unfortunately a time machine is not available anywhere at the time of this writing, so regrets won't help.

You guys have a chance to work this out, but by all means, get a lawyer, in the end you'll be happy you did.

The State will try to prove your boyfriend could have possession of the weapon anytime, which he could have, since the burden of proof is on the State, you'll have to prove that at the time of the arrest, the weapon was not in his possession. Also things like a good conduct, or no trouble all this time since previous convictions will help.

My best wishes for you. It could have been worst.
 
You (actually your fiance) has a very serious real life legal problem. The Internet is not the place to come for advice. He needs a real life lawyer.
 
We can't afford a lawyer. As in, totally and completely broke, not "don't want to pull $ out of our 401k's" broke. BROKE broke. His mom pulled 5k out of her 401k to bond him out (KY also bans bail bondsmen). We have no other family to ask for help. He has a public defender.

Re: burden of proof - that's exactly where my issue lies. Even the cop that arrested him said the cases were locked in the trunk and the keys to the cases were in the sole possession and on the person of the non-felon. How can the state prove he had access when he clearly did NOT at the time of arrest?

In the pretrial hearing, they asked me who packed the car. I said that was one of the things I hired the other guy for (my fiance also has a shoulder injury, all gun issues aside). They asked if I was present and I said no...again, that was the point of hiring someone else. So I'm guessing they were trying to trick me into saying he handled it? (Which he didn't and wouldn't, so fingerprints on the gun are NOT an issue.) Either way, the state the car was loaded in is outside of KY's jurisdiction - I'm assuming that was their one shot at trying to send the case to the feds.
 
Last edited:
This isn't entirely relevant, but they also charged him with possession of one of my prescription medications (nothing intense, either). I have signature records from the pharmacy that he signed for it and picked it up, just like he had for 6 months before that, with my authorization. That charge will definitely be dropped.
 
brownandgreen said:
We can't afford a lawyer. As in, totally and completely broke, not "don't want to pull $ out of our 401k's" broke. BROKE broke. His mom pulled 5k out of her 401k to bond him out (KY also bans bail bondsmen). We have no other family to ask for help. He has a public defender....
Click to expand...
Then rely on the public defender. That's his lawyer.

Look, this is reality. No one here can know enough about the case to be of any real help. Some folks here may know something about this sort of thing, but then again, maybe not. We're just a bunch of anonymous guys in cyberspace who may, or may not, know way we're talking about.

And for another dose of reality, this is a public place. Anything you say here is accessible and can be used by the prosecution. You can be identified by information in possession of this site's operators, and that information can be obtained by the prosecutor with a search warrant or subpoena.

So I'm sorry. This is an awful situation for you and your fiance. But this isn't the right place to look for the kind of help you seem to want; and if you continue to publish details about the case here, you very well could harm your fiance's legal position.
 
I'm not posting anything here that hasn't already been covered in the pretrial hearing.

egor20, THANK YOU for the links! I will contact them on Monday.

Still all ears if anyone else wants to chime in!
 
If you have not figured it it already you are going to need "the other guy" there to testify. If his story is even a little bit different than you are going to have some serious problems (or at least your boyfriend will).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top