Sexual Assault Attorney

Top Sexual Assault Attorney

Defending Sexual Assault Allegations

"Don't hire your pediatrician to handle your brain surgery."

Short of homicide, sexual assault charges carry the highest penalties and the greatest community stigma. The most serious sexual assault crimes can cost defendants decades of his or her life - if not the rest of it. Along with high stakes, sexual assault defense is complex. Often the allegations are months or years old. Complainants make a disclosure to a friend or counselor. Police conduct an investigation. Lives turn upside down in a moment's time. 

If you or someone you know has been accused of a sexual assault, then you need a defense attorney that is aggressive, experienced, successful. You don't hire your family doctor to handle your brain surgery. This is serious, complex, and high stakes. At RACINE DEFENSE, we are trained to be their as your sexual assault attorney. Our representation will make all the difference in defending these matters. Here's why:

1. We can challenge sex offender registration requirements.

The stigma of a sexual assault conviction goes beyond the name of the conviction itself. A person convicted of a sexual assault is often faced with mandatory or discretionary sex offender registration. Many communities have parallel and restrictive sex offender ordinances that apply to anyone who is a sex offender registrant. If a person is required to register but moves to another State, then they could face additional restrictions and registration responsibilities.

Attorney Dimmer served on the City of Racine Sex Offender Exemption Review Board, which reviewed applications to live within the restricted areas of Racine that prohibit sex offenders from living there. His experience benefits our clients in confronting this stigma and arguing against sex offender registration.

2. We can challenge sex offender treatment and supervision rules that require polygraphs and other burdensome monitoring.

If a client is convicted of a sexual assault, the court may order probation or extended supervision. Sex offender supervision is nearly impossible to complete in today's day and age, where so much of our lives require the internet. Sex offender supervision rules prohibit cellular phone use, computer use, certain music and movie viewing, contact with minors, and many other restrictive and seemingly unnecessary rules.

Attorney Brian Dimmer has successfully battled the Department of Corrections in numerous cases where the DOC has tried to revoke or impose unnecessary rules of supervision for sexual assault clients. But with many of those clients, the better approach would have been to hire our firm BEFORE the client was convicted. We can negotiate or litigate these rules and restrictions before the DOC ever meets with a client. We can argue that a client does not need probation or supervision. We can recommend preemptive treatment and assessments that convince the court to impose a fine or an alternative sentence. 

3. We can challenge the credibility and admissibility of sexual assault evidence through intense investigation and litigation.

In no other criminal defense case does the information admitted at trial (evidence) have a bigger impact.

We obtain and review the video interviews of witnesses — who are often children. These videos are proffered by the prosecution as a gold standard. Research and experts tell us just the opposite. By the time a witness has a “forensic interview,” the witness may have spoken to a parent, a loved-one, or a law enforcement officer several times about the alleged sexual assault. These conversations taint the truthfulness and integrity of the video-recorded interviews with trained experts. We also carefully review these videos, looking to see whether the interview properly employed a “forensic interviewing technique,” to ensure a fair and reliable statement from the witness.

We also obtain and challenge the DNA results from any evidence obtained by law enforcement. We have successfully defended against sexual assault allegations by carefully reviewing the State Crime Lab’s reports. We have seen cases where the complainant’s version of events is inconsistent with the lab reports, and this can fundamentally alter a case.

We can investigate prior false allegations or a complainant's prior sexual history. Beyond obtaining all discovery materials, we “leave no stone unturned” in investigating the history of the complainant. This can include information about the complaining witnesses prior sexual conduct, the defendant's prior criminal history, the complaining witness’s treatment records or juvenile records, and allegations that the defendant committed a similar crime against someone else.

In another great success story from 2015, we successfully argued that a complainant lied about the number of sexual partners she had in the days leading up to the alleged assault. This argument stemmed from careful review of the State Crime Lab reports in comparison to the sexual assault examination reports. Wisconsin strongly defends against attacks of the sexual character of complainants. Despite this, we successfully argued that the complainant could be questioned about lying to the examination nurse about her sexual partners, as it went to her truthfulness of the complaint against our client. In sexual assault defense more than anywhere else, details matter!

We can obtain treatment and counseling records from complainants. One of our greatest success stories was litigating that a complainant should not testify against the client in a repeated sexual assault of a child case, where the complaint refused to release her treatment records. After years of litigation and appeals, the court ruled that the complainant be barred from testifying, and the client avoided prison and felony charges.

4. We can stand by your side at trial, prepared to argue your innocence, cross-examine witnesses, and defend your life and liberty.

Over the past 30+ years, we have seen few other cases proceed to jury trial as frequently as sexual assault cases. We have defended sexual assault charges before juries, cross-examining young children, women, and police officers who vehemently believe the complainants. We have defended the prosecutors' question of "why would the victim make a false allegation against the defendant?" We have challenged the memories of complainants, as their allegations are usually years or more old. We have challenged SANE Nurses and Lab Analysts, who prop up their reports as false-smoking guns. We have worked tirelessly to secure not guilty verdicts.