Being contacted by police about a sexual assault investigation is frightening, and what happens in the days before an arrest can shape the outcome of the entire case. This post walks through a real example the Greg McCollum Complete Legal Defense Team has handled, showing how early legal representation can change the direction of an investigation before charges are ever filed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Should You Do If You Are Being Investigated for Sexual Assault in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina?
Greg McCollum, criminal defense attorney and founder of the Complete Legal Defense Team, tells the story of a client he calls Robert. Robert contacted the firm, and his concern was that the police wanted to talk to him, and he wanted to know what he could do or what he should do.
Robert, a young professional who had a real estate license, was a very ambitious young man who had taken a job specifically with a certain real estate group because they were one of the more innovative real estate companies. They had a good training program, they had a good sales record, and he wanted to be with one of the best.
He specifically moved to that area to work for that company and be trained by them and be trained by the person who owned the company. There was a young woman who was of the age of consent, because there are certain ages you have to be at to consent to have sex with someone, and she had gone and told her mother that this thing had happened in the real estate office, that Robert had sexually assaulted her, and that they called the police.
The police started investigating. Once they reached out to Robert to talk to him, to have him come into the police station and talk and do those things, he was smart enough to contact the Greg McCollum Complete Legal Defense Team.
At the time, the pre-arrest fee for a sexual assault situation like this was $5,000. In that situation, the firm talks to the police, does not let the client incriminate himself, and finds out if an arrest is imminent.
One of the things the firm asks the detective is, do you have a warrant? The other thing the firm asks is, if you want to talk to the client, is that going to change anything? If the client sits down, usually in the firm’s office, with a detective and waives his rights and answers questions, is that going to move the needle, is that going to change anything?
Many times detectives say, and these are kind of buzzwords, “Well, I’ve got enough to get a warrant right now, but I’d like to get a statement from him.” That usually means that person is going to be arrested. So there is nothing to be gained from giving a statement.
In Robert’s situation, they weren’t ready to arrest him right then, and that was likely because the allegations were not really sound. The detective may have had some question in the back of his mind and wasn’t ready to just run out and get a warrant. Most people who are being investigated for sexual assault, at least in the firm’s jurisdictions, are going to be arrested, almost all of them.
So when someone hires the firm, the firm gets in between the client and the police. The firm also lets the client know that if he’s going to be arrested, the firm will let him know, and he won’t have to be tracked down. He will come under his own power.
He will sit there, he’ll be ready to go into jail, which has a protocol, because you can’t take your computer, your phone, all that stuff, you can’t have a pocket knife in your pocket, you don’t even need keys or anything, you want to go in with next to nothing, maybe a driver’s license and no wallet.
Then the process is smooth. He’ll spend the night in jail, and the firm will be there at the bond hearing the next day to tell the judge that he surrendered, he has a lawyer, he’s not a flight risk, and the firm can explain all that to help control the conditions of bond.
If the judge doesn’t hear from a lawyer saying these things, bonds typically are higher. If somebody’s charged with sexual assault, the judge doesn’t know anything about the allegations, but he’s charged with rape, so they’re going to set a high bond, they may put him under house arrest, they may put him on what’s called a GPS monitor, which he pays for so they can monitor where he goes, and he has to check in and do those things.
Robert was a young professional who had a lot to lose and a lot riding on it. If he gets arrested and charged with sexual assault, most reputable companies, if not all, are going to fire him. They’re not going to let someone charged with that work for the company, and in the situation of a real estate agent who meets people at properties and shows properties and is alone with people, no real estate company is going to let someone charged with sexual assault do that work.
Once someone is charged, someone is going to file a complaint with the real estate commission, and they’re going to do an investigation and likely temporarily suspend the license. This happens all the time with sexual assault cases. It doesn’t matter if there even was a sexual assault, it doesn’t matter if you’re guilty, it doesn’t matter if they’re false allegations. Once you’re charged, everyone thinks the worst, you turn into this kind of pariah that nobody wants to be around.
Eventually, within a day or two, Robert hired the firm. The firm talked to him and also talked to the police, trying to hold them at bay, because the longer the firm can keep the police from getting a warrant, the better the chance they won’t do something. In this situation, apparently what had happened is that this woman became overwhelmed in the office and started to perform a sex act on him, which startled him.
In that kind of situation, you’re kind of damned either way, because if you rebuff that and push someone away, you could be accused of something because the person’s been scorned and angry, and if you do something with somebody you’re really not in a relationship with, that doesn’t have good consequences.
Once the firm started talking to the company and had a conversation with the company’s lawyer, and started looking at the office, several things just didn’t add up. The office was full of people that day, it was the middle of the day, the office they were in was a middle office, it wasn’t a heavy duty door, the doors to that room didn’t even lock, people were walking back and forth, and the walls were thin, so you could hear something if there was something odd happening.
Certainly if somebody was being assaulted or anybody was arguing, everyone would hear it. The firm talked to the detective and asked him to go look at the office, to go look at where she claimed this happened. As the firm’s legal team talked to people who worked for the company, they found out who was there during that exact time period, and there were two or three or four people who were witnesses.
For the police, a witness is somebody who saw or heard you commit a crime, but for defense attorneys, witnesses are also people who are in proximity and would have heard you commit a crime and didn’t hear anything unusual. Everything was normal. The firm got the police to actually do an investigation and talk to some of those people, and it started creating a completely different picture.
It wasn’t a situation where it was just her word, it was a situation where independent witnesses said Robert has high standards, Robert’s a professional, they were all in the office, it wouldn’t be unusual for one of them to just walk in that door, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to hear somebody talking in there if they were talking loudly, and there was nothing unusual that happened that day.
Because the firm was able to get the detective to actually interview these witnesses and go look at the scene, and was telling him also about all the good things about Robert, that he’s young, energetic, professional, this is what other people say about him, he has no criminal history, he’s never been charged with a crime, much less an assault, he’s clean as a whistle, eventually the police made a decision not to get a warrant.
Sometimes they do that in kind of a backhanded way, where they go to the judge and present whether or not they have probable cause to get a warrant, which is scary, because probable cause to get a warrant is a low standard, it doesn’t mean you’re guilty, it just means there’s enough there, which doesn’t require much.
But in this situation, the detective went in and had an honest private conversation with the judge and said, “I don’t feel good about this case,” so he needed to know if the judge would issue a warrant, the judge cued off of that, the judge saw what was going on, and the judge declined the warrant. Then the police officer could go back to the alleged victim, back to the alleged victim’s mother.
It seemed the mother and maybe another family member were really pushing this, and it seemed they had even put stuff on social media, calling Robert a rapist, and that puts pressure on the police. Thankfully, the detective did a good investigation, no warrant was issued, and that was the end of it.
Instead of Robert hiring the firm and paying $30,000 to $50,000 to $80,000 to defend him on a sexual assault case, which would have been pending for probably two years in the firm’s jurisdiction, could be longer, and in that period of time he would have probably lost his real estate license, not had a job, and been trying to fend for himself, this was one that turned out well.
If you had an opportunity to talk to Robert, he would say, in hindsight, that was the best money he had ever spent.
With nearly 30 years of experience and a background as a former prosecutor, Greg McCollum understands how South Carolina law enforcement approaches sexual assault investigations from both sides of the case. That perspective can matter in the hours and days before an arrest is made, when early decisions may affect how a case unfolds.
If you have questions about being investigated for sexual assault in South Carolina, call the Greg McCollum Complete Legal Defense Team at (843) 626-5480. Consultations are confidential.
