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Judge Charged With Bribery Acquittal | Houston Criminal Law

Dan Cogdell | 832 Views | 09/02/2015

Judge Acquitted of Bribery Charges

A former judge and then city councilman was charged in federal court with bribery and corruption. How did I get them acquitted? Hello, my name is Dan Cogdell. I’m a lawyer here in the city of Houston. I’ve been practicing criminal defense work in the state of Texas for about 32 years.

In that situation, my client was caught on tape, under surveillance by an FBI sting operation of accepting cash payments in exchange for a vote that was coming up for a city council. How in the world did we obtain an acquittal under those circumstances? Here is how we did it.

Number one: we were able to demonstrate to the jury that at no time did our client ever agree to do anything in exchange for that cash. We were also able to explain to the jury and convince the jury that our client didn’t believe that he was doing anything wrong by accepting cash. He thought it was a campaign contribution and not a bribe.

The final thing that we did was get the jury to focus on the conduct of our client. There were several individuals charged in that case, most of whom the evidence was even worse against those clients than it was against our client, so we were able to keep the juries focus on what our client did and didn’t do, and not lump him in with all the other individuals charged and paint with too broad of a brush. When the jury properly understood the evidence against our client and only our client, they were able to properly find him not guilty of all charges.

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s important in every case that the jury understand the actions of the defendant from the defendant’s perspective. Not the other people, not others charged with the crime, but from that defendant and hat defendant’s alone’s perspective. If you’re looking for a lawyer that can do that, if you have questions about your situation, if you’re charged with a crime and need to contact an experience criminal defense lawyer, call me. We’ll help you if we can, we’ll answer any questions that you’ve got, and we’ll meet with you when it’s appropriate. Thank you for your time. My name is Dan Cogdell.

By: Dan Cogdell

Judge Charged With Bribery Acquittal | Houston Criminal Law

Judge Acquitted of Bribery Charges

A former judge and then city councilman was charged in federal court with bribery and corruption. How did I get them acquitted? Hello, my name is Dan Cogdell. I’m a lawyer here in the city of Houston. I’ve been practicing criminal defense work in the state of Texas for about 32 years.

In that situation, my client was caught on tape, under surveillance by an FBI sting operation of accepting cash payments in exchange for a vote that was coming up for a city council. How in the world did we obtain an acquittal under those circumstances? Here is how we did it.

Number one: we were able to demonstrate to the jury that at no time did our client ever agree to do anything in exchange for that cash. We were also able to explain to the jury and convince the jury that our client didn’t believe that he was doing anything wrong by accepting cash. He thought it was a campaign contribution and not a bribe.

The final thing that we did was get the jury to focus on the conduct of our client. There were several individuals charged in that case, most of whom the evidence was even worse against those clients than it was against our client, so we were able to keep the juries focus on what our client did and didn’t do, and not lump him in with all the other individuals charged and paint with too broad of a brush. When the jury properly understood the evidence against our client and only our client, they were able to properly find him not guilty of all charges.

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s important in every case that the jury understand the actions of the defendant from the defendant’s perspective. Not the other people, not others charged with the crime, but from that defendant and hat defendant’s alone’s perspective. If you’re looking for a lawyer that can do that, if you have questions about your situation, if you’re charged with a crime and need to contact an experience criminal defense lawyer, call me. We’ll help you if we can, we’ll answer any questions that you’ve got, and we’ll meet with you when it’s appropriate. Thank you for your time. My name is Dan Cogdell.

By: Dan Cogdell