I am trying to determine whether I can have a case thrown out against me. I live in Oregon. Yesterday a man, accompanied
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Customer: I am trying to determine whether I can have a case thrown out against me. I live in Oregon. Yesterday a man, accompanied with three other men with cameras, came to my door with a printout of a conversation I had with him, as he was playing a 9 year old girl on instagram. Reading the conversation I believe he had hoped to entrap me on several occasions but he failed in doing so. He largely contacted me and I said a nice word and was done. However, as I work in a school it was still an embarrassing record and I regretfully mentioned students of mine by name.He then used this embarassing document, as well as cameras as a means of interrogating me over an hour or even more. He seemed to want me to believe that he would bury the document if I said what he wanted me to, and for my part I felt intimidated. I told him I did not want to be recorded, but he said the cameras were only there for their safety. My kids were at home with me an were clearly nervous. At one point my son came out of the house to ask me to make him breakfast, and my recollection is that my interrogator spoke to him about going back inside, that he was just asking me some questions about school. I think I also made clear I hadn't even yet had a chance to use the bathroom that morning. I felt as if I was being held against my will, and I complied by answering questions as he wanted them answered. He made large leaps from his short online conversation with me and his uncovering that I used the application Telegram to make spurious claims. When I started pushing back against these, he started pushing me back. At some point I did eventually succumb to admitting to one count of possession under complicated circumstances. After failing to get me to admit to nauseating and infuriating abuses of my students, he directed police over, presumably telling them what I had said and giving them the recordings they had made.The police were professional and read my miranda rights. However at this point I was very shaken and thought the police now had a mountain of information with which to prosecute me, and I felt so overwhelmingly guilty that I continued to admit to things, both true and not, because any stepping back at all from what I said on the video seemed like a positive. One admission was even in truth, that I had been in possession of illegal content on my phone but thought it long gone. However, when I checked and saw it was not the police confiscated my phone.Going back to my initial question, how easily can the police build a case against me on the basis of confessions first recorded in violation of Oregon law (I was not "specifically informed that my conversation was being obtained"; they claimed they were only recording in fear I might pull a weapon on them) and under duress? and before that on an attempt at entrapment made by private citizens, which I do not know the legality of in Oregon. if police had interrogated me this way before reading my miranda rights, it seems to me that the case would be scrapped. Is that not just as true when the initial interrogation is made by aggressive vigilantes? or are police allowed to legally build upon criminally collected evidence?
JA: Have any charges been filed? If so, when is the next court date?
Customer: no charges have been filed. there is an active investigation and I was told they would be seeking a search warrant for my phone and computer.
JA: Have you talked to an Oregon lawyer about this yet?
Customer: not yet.
JA: Is there anything else the Lawyer should know before I connect you? Rest assured that they'll be able to help you.
Customer: not that I can think of
Answered by JanLegal in 1 hour 5 months ago
JanLegal
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