Commonwealth v. J.K.
J.K. was arrested for raping his 12 year old daughter over a period of several months. DHS removed all children from the house. The judge at the preliminary hearing found the child’s testimony “so disturbing” that he raised bail to 1 million dollars. After the preliminary hearing, J.K. hired LinkLaw to represent him. After securing J.K.’s release to house arrest pending trial, top Philadelphia attorney Mr. Link undertook an aggressive investigation into the allegations. The findings were startling. The allegations of rape only surfaced in the middle of a custody dispute. Furthermore, Mr. Link found evidence of a secret Facebook account the girl had been using to correspond with the biological mom who was seeking custody. In those conversations, the biological mom made extravagant promises to the child, including exuberant gifts, being allowed to go out with friends whenever she pleased, and even not having to go to school. The child expressed her displeasure of having to live with J.K., who made her perform numerous chores, took her out of public school, made her pray regularly, and wouldn’t let her out at night. After the biological mom was denied full custody, another Facebook message from the child indicated that the Mom shouldn’t worry, and that she stayed up late at night watching the movie Daddy’s Little Girls (a story where the father lost custody of his children following fabricated charges of statutory rape!). The pretrial offer to plead guilty on this case was 7 to 14 years in jail, and had J.K. been convicted he would have faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 to 20 years according to sex offense laws in Philadelphia. Prior to the picking of the jury, and after being given this damning evidence, the DA changed their offer to 11.5 to 23 months with Meghan’s Law conditions. J.K. rejected this offer and the defense proceeded to pick a jury. Minutes before the opening statements were scheduled to start, the DA folded and withdrew all charges, acknowledging that the Commonwealth would not be able to sustain its burden of proof.
