2nd Degree Aggravated Assault Dismissed

Simple Assault Charges

Our Hudson County criminal attorneys defended a client was charged with second degree Aggravated Assault, third degree Possession of a Weapon for Unlawful Purposes, and fourth degree Unlawful Possession of a Weapon. In particular, the second degree crime was punishable by 5 – 10 years in state prison with a presumption of incarceration if found guilty. Moreover, the crime would fall under NERA (No Early Release Act) which means that a defendant would have to serve 85% of the time before being eligible for parole.

Our client was a professional and could not afford to receive a criminal record and obviously not get sentenced to incarceration. So we first appeared in Hudson County Superior Court and were able to convince the County Prosecutor’s Office to downgrade the charge to disorderly persons offense of Simple Assault and send it back down to Jersey City Municipal Court. From there we appeared multiple times with our client and presented various defenses to the prosecutor and Court in furtherance of a dismissal but the Judge was hesitant to take action because the charges had been so serious. After months of back and forth were able to successfully make a motion for a dismissal of the charges altogether.

State v. P.T. decided February 4, 2016