The Umansky Law Firm

The United States has been losing the war against drugs for decades now, and Florida, unfortunately, has been and probably always will be a hot bed for drug smuggling, trafficking, and abusing due to its coastal location. If you have found yourself caught up in the drug business and have been charged with a drug offense in the state of Florida, there is legal help available to you.

Just days ago, the United States Coast Guard unloaded 3,200 pounds of cocaine in Fort Lauderdale. The cocaine has been estimated to be worth around $100 million on the streets. The weight of the cocaine was about 1.6 tons. It had been thrown overboard by smugglers who were being pursued by a Coast Guard helicopter in the Western Caribbean last week. The smugglers got away but the cocaine did not.

Fifty bales of it were fished from the sea and brought to the Port Everglades Harbor.

If you’ve been arrested on a drug charge in Florida, please call The Umansky Law Firm today to schedule your initial appointment.

On Monday, March 24th, Zahra Umansky defended a client arrested for his second driving under the influence charge in the last five years. The client could have potentially received a five year suspension of his driver's license and up to nine months jail. If convicted he would have to serve at least ten days in jail.

The client was pulled over for allegedly running a red light. He admitted to the arresting law enforcement officer that he had consumed eight mixed drinks earlier in the evening. A search of the client's truck bed also revealed 20 previously opened beer cans.

Attorney Umansky filed a motion to suppress the evidence. After a hearing, the presiding judge suppressed all of the evidence against our client. And, when faced with the prospect of going to trial without evidence, the state prosecutor dropped the case.

If you have been arrested for a DUI in the Orlando, Florida area, please contact the Umansky Law Firm for an initial consultation.

Some people prepare for months to get their driver’s license and may drive for years without incident. However, we all know people who do not take the rules of the road as seriously as they should and are even a danger to themselves and others when behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Once you have passed the tests necessary to obtain a Florida driver’s license, the only requirement is to obey the rules of the road and drive safely. If you are an unsafe driver or ignore the laws of the road, you could very easily lose your privilege to drive in Florida. If this happens, your life will be severely affected. Just think how often you drive and how many things you need your car for. Not being able to drive would be absolutely devastating to your day-to-day life.

Driver’s licenses in Florida can be suspended (taken away temporarily) or revoked (taken away permanently) for a variety of reasons.

Your Florida driver’s license can be revoked if you:

· Commit a felony involving a motor vehicle

· Get a DUI

· Leave the scene of an accident that result in injury or death

· Get three reckless driving tickets in one year

· Are cited for three major traffic offenses or 15 smaller ones within a five-year period.

· Drag race on the highway and get caught

· Don’t meet vision requirements to have a license

If you have been caught driving with a revoked license in the state of Florida, the consequences are serious. An experienced criminal defense attorney such as the ones at The Umansky Law Firm in the Orlando area can help you get through this legal nightmare. Please contact our office today to schedule your initial consultation.

If you have been arrested and then convicted of a crime in the state of Florida, you may have been put on probation as part of your punishment. Probation is simply the suspension of a jail sentence. You have been found guilty of what you were charged with but instead of serving jail time, the court has decided to put you on probation for a certain amount of time. During this time, you will have to report to what is called a probation officer. Probation rules vary from state to state, of course.

While you are on probation, you will be expected to do and NOT do certain things. General conditions may include maintaining employment, abiding to a curfew, living where directed, abstaining from unlawful behavior, following the probation officer's orders, not leaving the state, and refraining from contact with other individuals, such as former partners in crime or convicted felons.

For you legal history buffs out there reading, Wikipedia tells us that probation first developed in the United States when John Augustus, a Boston boot maker, persuaded a judge in the Boston Police Court in 1841 to give him custody of a convicted offender, a "drunkard," for a brief period and then helped the man to appear rehabilitated by the time of sentencing.

Probation began as a humanitarian effort to allow first-time and minor offenders a second chance. Early probationers were expected not only to obey the law but also to behave in a morally acceptable fashion. Officers sought to provide moral leadership to help shape probationers' attitudes and behavior with respect to family, religion, employment, and free time. They aimed to ensure that this was enforced as well, and early probationers were given the opportunity to prove themselves and possibly even reduce their sentence.

Violating probation is a serious offense in Florida. If you have been convicted of a crime and are on probation but have violated the conditions of your probation in the Orlando area or anywhere in Florida, please contact the experienced probation violation attorneys at The Umansky Law Firm today to schedule an initial consultation.

Orlando, Florida Criminal Defense Attorney, William Umansky, was able to persuade the state to drop a charge of "driving while license suspended" against his client on the day of the trial.

The client was a successful building contractor who unknowingly lost her license because of toll violations she received because her transponder was not working. She was pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol and arrested for driving on a suspended license.

Mr. Umansky set the case for trial and was able to convince the prosecutor to drop the charge as the client did not intentionally break the law and was able to reinstate her license before the court date. The proseutor agreed to drop the charge in exchange for the client paying a civil fine on a citation.

If you find yourself being charged with any kind of traffic violation in Orlando or anywhere in Florida, please contact The Umansky Law Firm today to schedule your initial consultation.

Orlando criminal defense attorney, William Umansky, recently defended a woman who was charged with leaving the scene of a vehicle accident; however, she did not intentionally leave the scene to avoid criminal prosecution or having to pay for damage. Instead, the other person involved in the collision refused to provide the necessary insurance information in a timely manner, and the woman had to leave the accident scene in order to make a very important scheduled doctor’s appointment.

Unfortunately, the Florida Highway Patrol officer at this accident did not care about our client’s reason for leaving the accident, and she was cited for leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, which is a very serious charge in the state of Florida. In fact, that charge is punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Our client was extremely distressed over this very scary and stressful situation, but we fought for her legal rights in court and were able to have the charge amended to merely a civil citation. The criminal case was dropped altogether.

This situation should prove that just because you are charged with a crime does not mean you are guilty of that crime. If you or a loved one has been arrested in the Orlando area or anywhere in Florida, and you feel you have been wrongly accused or there are extenuating circumstances surrounding your arrest, please contact The Umansky Law Firm today to schedule your initial consultation.

Many people feel that an arrest is pretty much the end of their life, but with an experienced legal team on your side, this does not have to be the case. Many people arrested once go on to lead very normal lives, and their arrest never comes back to haunt them.

If you are a first-time offender in the state of Florida, you may be eligible to enter a program that is geared to misdemeanor theft crimes. The program is called MDP (misdemeanor diversion program), and after completion of this program, you case will get dismissed, and we can help clear your criminal record.

Another program, PTI (Felony Pretrial Intervention) is available for first-time felony offenders and is similar to the misdemeanor program but much more intense.

The criminal defense attorneys at The Umansky Law Firm in Orlando, Florida will help you recover from your arrest and help you get your life back. Please contact our office today to schedule your initial appointment.

The causes of domestic violence are just as varied as the types. In some relationships, violence arises out of a need for power and control. Some domestic violence is learned behavior from previous generations. Abusers' efforts to dominate their partners have been attributed to low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy, unresolved childhood conflicts, poverty, hostility, misogyny (hatred of women), personality disorders, substance abuse, etc. Some experts claim that all domestic abuse relates to men's need to devalue women and view them in negative ways.

Regardless of the causes, domestic violence remains a very serious problem in the United States today, and domestic violence can be very difficult to spot. Some of the worst abusers may appear perfectly calm and normal at work or in social situations. A common pattern of domestic abuse is that the perpetrator alternates between violent, abusive behavior and apologetic behavior with sincere promises to never do it again. The abuser may even be very pleasant most of the time. This is why so many people do not leave abusive relationships. They fall for the abusers lies about never doing it again and being able to change.

If you have been arrested on a domestic violence charge in Florida, you need legal help. Please call the Umansky Law Firm today to schedule your initial appointment.

New sentencing guidelines will lead to the release of at least a dozen federal inmates incarcerated on crack-cocaine charges. But approximately 1,600 inmates are currently eligible to ask for reduced sentences because of a decision in December by a federal agency to make retroactive reduced sentences for some crack-cocaine related convictions. The decision may eventually affect tens of thousands of imprisoned felons.

The decision was based on the stark differences in sentencing for powder cocaine violations and crack cocaine violations. One example of the sentencing differences is that a person with ONE gram of crack cocaine would receive the same sentence as someone with 100 grams of powder cocaine.

Those advocating sentencing reform, such as the Families Against Mandatory Minimums, argue that such a ratio is discriminatory, and they point to a racial issue associated with the disparity in sentencing. The group claims that many of those found with crack are African-American, while powder users are mostly white.

Since the Sentencing Commission action, lawyers around the nation have been working vigorously to file motions for many of those eligible so they could be released as close to March 3 as possible if judges approve.

If you have been arrested for the first time in Florida, there are some things you should know. A crime is an act or omission that society, through the laws of its government, has deemed to be morally or politically harmful, not only to the victim of a crime but to society as a whole. That is why you the prosecutors say they represent "the people."

In Florida, if you are convicted of a crime, you may be fined, imprisoned or executed. Federal and state governments have authority to create and enforce criminal law, though the scope of federal criminal jurisdiction is more limited than a state’s jurisdiction. The federal government can only define and punish crimes committed in federally owned or controlled areas such as Washington D.C. and national parks, or regarding matters expressly stated in the Constitution or the United States code such as matters involving the postal service, interstate commerce, securities or federal elections. A state has broad criminal jurisdiction over all internal issues relating to health, safety, welfare and morals of its citizens.

Elements of a Crime

Certain elements must exist for a crime to have taken place. The elements of a crime typically include: a physical act (or omission); the intent to commit the act; causation (the act and intent causing or resulting in violation of the law.

Only an experienced criminal defense attorney such as the ones at the Umansky Law Firm in Orlando can help you through the legal nightmare that follows an arrest. Please contact us today to schedule an appointment.