Sex Offenses

NERA is the No Early Release Act, which prosecutors can apply to certain violent crimes prosecutions.

Under NERA, a defendant who is convicted of a violent crime, including a number of sex crimes, must serve 85% of the sentence they are given before they are eligible for parole.

If the crime you are charged with carries a 10 year sentence and you’re convicted, under NERA, you’ll serve eight and one-half years in state prison before you’re allowed to even speak to a parole board, much less get parole.

There are a number of defense strategies that can be applied to reduce your exposure to NERA, but your first priority has to be finding a qualified, experienced criminal defense attorney.

Call Matthew Reisig today at 732-625-9661 for a free consultation with one of New Jersey’s most accomplished defense lawyers.

Yes. In New Jersey, statutory rape is charged as sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault.

Not knowing the age of the victim is no defense.

Statutory sexual assault is what’s known as a “strict liability offense,” which makes your knowledge of the victim’s age irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is that the crime was committed.

The younger the victim in a statutory sexual assault case, the more likely it is that prosecutors will charge the crime as aggravated sexual assault, which carries a sentence of as much as 20 years.

A conviction for statutory sexual assault can put the offender away for 10 years.

Things don’t get a lot easier once you’re back in society. You’ll be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life, which will limit your options in life drastically.

Conviction of any sex crime is devastating to individuals and their families, but when those sex crimes involve minors, the stakes are too high to take any chances with your defense.

If you’ve been questioned in relation to a sex crime investigation, or have been arrested and charged with sex crimes including statutory rape, call Matthew Reisig right away at 732-625-9661 for a free consultation with an experienced sex crimes defense attorney.

Modern statutes tend to define a spectrum of prohibited, non-consensual sexual acts under the umbrella of “sexual assault” and “sexual abuse.”

These run the gamut from unwanted touching, to child molestation, to attempted rape and rape.

“Rape” is a crime that has been in the legal lexicon for a very long time, and as a result it carries significant baggage when it comes to defining the act.

Traditionally, rape was understood to be heterosexual intercourse where the rapist was male and the victim was female, and not the attacker’s wife.

Obviously, this definition feels out of place in our culture.

As a result, the broader term “sexual assault” provides an umbrella that covers a criminal act like rape (now defined less rigidly in New Jersey law) as well as similar acts.

If you’ve been charged with a sex crime in New Jersey, don’t delay getting tough criminal defense protection.

Call Matthew Reisig today at 732-625-9661 and talk to a tough New Jersey sex crimes defense attorney for free.

A very nice editorial in the CourierPostOnline about the sexting reform efforts in New Jersey. Well said, and worth a read.

A lot of the kids in these cases are not criminals, and many indeed are victims. The law should be flexible enough so that judges can decide how the laws are applied, who is a victim, who made a dumb, but not felonious mistake, and who are the actually dangerous criminal sexual predators.