Expert: Robin Sexton - 3/25/2008

Question
ok so on December 11th my ex-best friend decided to steal a quad,we live in a small town in the middle of nowhere kinda and we live relatively close to eachother. We both love to ride quads and both have our own well he stole this quad on Tuesday and my mother goes bowling on Tuesday so my father comes and picks me and my younger brother up and we go to his house which is out of the county where the atv was stolen well the next day he brought it out to his girlfriends house in which lives in the house next to me about 100 yards away this is the first time i had ever seen the quad and we both rode it all day and we where going to go to a riding track down the road and i was on my way down the highway and it broke so i offered to fix it for him at my dads thus he has a large garage and all tools to fix it with so i fixed it for him and brought it back to him and he came and picked it up from my house and took it supposably home but unknowing to me at the time it was stolen when he had told my mother that it was his and his father bought it for him and he wanted me to try and sell it for himand i tried to sell it to a couple friends on my myspace which is an online friend place and i was also trying to sell another atv for a atv shop who asked me if i could try and find someone to buy it from him and the quad stolen was a polaris magnum 500 and the quad that i was trying to sell for the shop was a polaris sportsman, so he took it and hid it at another riding spot, the whole week it had been stolen he had told everybody at the highschool that i had stole it and by the time i had given it back to him it got around to me that i stole it and i was saying that i didn't know what they were taking about and so that monday he came and got it it got around to me it was stolen so a couple days went by and it was Thursday and the news about the quad was buzzing around the school and he all of a sudden wanted to bring it back to my house and i told him i didn't know what i was doing that day and then he got arrested from school and told the police that i stole the quad and i knew where it was (when i didn't) So the police came to my house and told me they knew it was me who did it and they had a cell phone with pictures and a video of me riding the quad unknowing it was stolen i told them the truth about me not stealing the quad and not knowing it was stolen when i had it in my possession. so now we have went to court and i denied all charges when the investigation was going on the investigator wouldn't talk to any of my witnesses that know i didn't do it although she talked to all of the person who really stole the quad's witnesses in which i know and they are all his best friends and he has told them that i did it and they have believed him so i am at blame here of this crime the arrested me the night they came over for possession of stolen property and they are trying to get me for theft and burglary when i have proof i wasn't around during the time it was stolen which they have in the 911 call because my mother is a 911 dispatcher we denied all charges and now it is a facts finding case we have an attorney now but in the paper work they have defiantly made it sound like i have done it by changing around everything we have said to the investigator although the other person tried to tell the police that i knew where the quad was he ended up saying that he knew where it was and then showed them where it was and he said he has never been there..now my background isn't good in which i belive is why he tried to blame this crime on me i have been in trouble, they charged me for theft...and that happened because my neighbor had let me have allot of the stuff at the house she lived at which is her grandparents so it should've been a receiving stolen property but the other person didn't want to get in trouble so she blamed me for it and i accepted charges. That is the reason they are trying to get me in trouble for this i have been sent to the juvenile facility last summer for that crime because they found more of the reported stolen property on my land so they got me for that and i have been put on formal probation for that and i haven't been in any trouble with the law after wards of that crime and now all of a sudden they will not believe a word i say because the other person has never been in trouble other than vandalism and wasn't put on probation and i have had to do a family enhancement counseling service and i was about to be discharged until he blamed me the consolers know that i would not do this and say i have improved 110 percent but my probation officer will not listen so any help on what you think would be helpful i don't think any of this mess is fair of them to pin on me when he took some charges and got off everything

Answer
Cody,

You apparently accidentally sent this to me three times, so i will only answer on this one, OK ?
    I truthfully do understand the problem you are having.  A lot of young people don't truly understand a lot of the issues regarding having a "record", the lack of trust, not being believed etc.  Not just problems getting work, schools etc.
At this point you are in pretty deep and you only have a few things that you can do.
 First and foremost follow the instructions that your attorney gives you and do not do anything with our first checking with your attorney.
 Second, begin writing down everything that happened, where you were, who was there, etc.  Give this information to your attorney and let your attorney work with that.
  The third item i would suggest you discuss with your attorney first.  If you or someone you trust can have a discussion with the "friend" that actually stole the ATV and try and get it recorded.  DO NOT do this without discussing with your attorney first.  You could violate a state law or violate a judges ruling.
  The fourth thing you could consider and again, discuss with your attorney first is depending on your state you could take a polygraph.
  Depending on your age you could still be a juvenile and will be treated differently in court, probation extended, maybe a detention center.  I understand that you did not steal the ATV but your friend is not acting like one.  Your friend has pretty well screwed you over. You obviously don't owe him anything and you need to realize that your issues are what is important to you in this situation.

Good luck

Robin