Brooklyn Assault Lawyer: Why The Fight You Won Might Be The Case You Lose
Welcome to Spodek Law Group. We represent people charged with assault in Brooklyn - and our goal is to give you the reality of how these cases actually work. Not the sanitized version you read on other law firm websites. Not the TV drama version where truth wins in the end. The actual truth about what happens when you get arrested for assault in Kings County.
Heres the thing most people dont realize until its too late: assault cases arent decided by what actually happened during the fight. Theyre decided by who told the story first.
The moment your opponent dials 911 and frames themselves as the victim, you become "the offender" in every document that follows. The police report. The hospital intake form. The prosecutors file. That narrative gets locked within thirty minutes of the call - and by the time you hire a lawyer, youre not fighting facts. Youre fighting a paper trail thats already been written, signed, and filed against you.
The Fight Ends in Seconds. The Narrative Starts Immediatley.
Picture what happens after a typical Brooklyn altercation. Two people get into it outside a bar in Williamsburg. Maybe outside a bodega in Crown Heights. Or on the subway platform at Atlantic Avenue. Punches get thrown. One person ends up more visibly injured then the other.
Now heres were it gets interesting. The person on the ground - the one bleeding, the one who looks like a victim - grabs there phone and calls 911. They tell the operator they were attacked. They say it was unprovoked. They give a description of you. Maybe they throw in some creative details about how you threatened to kill them, or how you came out of nowhere.
By the time police arrive, the story is set. The 911 recording becomes the official version of events. The responding officers document who called (the "complainant") and who was identified as the attacker (the "offender"). These labels get copied into every subsequent report.
You can try to explain your side. But heres the paradox defense lawyers know too well: talking to police almost never helps you. If they have enough evidence to arrest you, nothing you say will change there minds. If they dont have enough evidence, talking to them increases the risk of giving them exactly what they need. The police arent there to figure out who really started the fight. Theyre there to make an arrest and clear the scene.
So your left with a choice. Stay silent and look guilty to the cops who write the report. Or talk and potentially incriminate yourself with statements that will be used against you in court.
Neither option undoes the narrative thats already been established. Neither option erases the 911 recording were your opponent is crying and describing you as a violent attacker. Neither option changes who got labeled "offender" in the first report.
Why Brooklyn's 89% Conviction Rate Starts Before Your Arrest
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office doesnt take cases they think they might loose. In 2024, the Brooklyn DA achieved an 89% trial conviction rate in Supreme Court cases. Let that sink in. Nine out of every ten people who went to trial in Brooklyn were convicted.
This dosent happen by accident. It happens becuase prosecutors have learned to select cases where the narrative is already locked in there favor.
Think about it from the DAs perspective. They have limited resources. They want wins. Their careers depend on conviction rates. So they look for cases were the paperwork tells a clear story: identified offender, documented injuries on the complainant, maybe some witness statements that corroborate the callers version. If the case looks messy or complicated, they might decline to prosecute or offer a plea deal. But if the paperwork paints a clear picture of guilt? Thats when they take it to trial.
By the time your case lands on a prosecutors desk, theyve already reviewed the police report, the 911 call, the hospital records. They know what the complainant told the intake nurse about who hurt them. They know what text messages show leading up to the incident. If those documents paint you as the aggressor, your already behind before you even know charges have been filed.
OK so what does this mean practicaly? It means the most important moments in your assault case arent in the courtroom. Theyre in the thirty minutes after the incident - when the narrative gets written. And its probly already happened before you ever thought to call a lawyer.
The prosecutors arent neutral fact-finders. Theyre advocates for the other side. And they've had weeks or months to review the paper trail while you were going about your life, maybe not even knowing you were being investigated.
Assault 3 vs Assault 2: How One Detail Turns Misdemeanor Into Prison
Most people think assault charges are straighforward. Somebody hit somebody. The cops figure out who started it. Simple.
But the New York Penal Law creates a system of degrees that can turn a bar fight into a life-altering felony conviction faster than you can imagine. The diffrence between degrees isnt about how angry you were or who threw the first punch. Its about technicalities that most people never think about until there sitting in an interrogation room.
Assault in the Third Degree is a Class A misdemeanor. It covers situations where someone intentionally or recklessly causes "physical injury" to another person. Physical injury means impairment of physical condition or substantial pain. A bloody nose. A black eye. Bruises. Basically, if you hurt somebody and it wasnt just a scratch, thats third degree assault.
The maximum penalty? Up to one year in jail and up to $1,000 fine. Plus three years probation. For a first offense in Brooklyn, you might avoid jail entirely. Many cases get resolved with an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal - basicly, keep your nose clean for six months and the charges disappear.
But heres were the trap springs. The moment that "physical injury" becomes "serious physical injury," everything changes.
Assault in the Second Degree is a Class D violent felony. "Serious physical injury" means substantial risk of death, or serious and protracted disfigurement, or protracted impairment of health, or protracted loss or impairment of any bodily organ.
What qualifies? A broken bone. Thats it. One broken bone can transform your case from a misdemeanor with possible probation into a violent felony with three to seven years of mandatory prison time.
Read that again. Mandatory prison. Not "up to" - mandatory. The judge has no discretion to give you probation. If convicted of Assault 2, your going to state prison. Period. The legislature has tied the judges hands.
And heres the part nobody mentions: violent felony convictions cannot be sealed in New York. Ever. It follows you on every job application, every housing application, every background check for the rest of your life. Good luck getting a profesional license. Good luck renting an apartment in a decent building. Good luck explaining to your kids why Daddy has a violent felony on his record.
There are also enhancement factors that can make things even worse. If the prosecutor can show that your assault was motivated by bias - race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin - it becomes a hate crime. That pushes Assault 2 from a D felony up to a C felony, with even more prison time. If the victim was over 65 years old, under 11 years old, a law enforcement officer, a firefighter, or certain other protected categories, you face automatic upgrades.
As Todd Spodek explains to clients facing these charges: the diffrence between spending a few months dealing with court dates and spending years in prison can come down to how a broken wrist is classified. The same punch, the same circumstances, completly different outcomes depending on the injury and how the prosecutor decides to charge it.
The Self-Defense Trap Nobody Explains
Everyone thinks self-defense is a get-out-of-jail-free card. Someone attacked you. You defended yourself. Case closed. The system will understand.
Actualy, its nothing like that. The legal reality of self-defense is completley different from what most people imagine.
In New York, self-defense is whats called an "affirmative defense." That means the burden shifts to YOU to prove your actions were justified. The prosecutor dosent have to prove you werent acting in self-defense. You have to prove you were. This is a fundmental difference that catches almost everyone off guard.
Let me say that differently becuase its important. If you claim self-defense, you are admitting you caused harm - and then arguing it was legally justified. The question becomes not whether you did it, but whether you had the right to do it. Your basicly saying "yes I hit them, but here's why that was okay."
And what does "justified" mean? Your use of force must be proportional to the threat you faced. You must have reasonably believed you were in imminent danger of physical harm. And a court will evaluate whether a reasonable person in your situation would have percieved the same threat and responded the same way.
Proportionality is where most self-defense claims fall apart. If somebody shoves you, you cant respond by breaking their jaw. If somebody threatens you verbally, you cant hit them preemptively. The law expects you to use only the force necesary to stop the threat - nothing more. And if you go beyond that, your self-defense claim evaporates and your just an assailant.
Now heres the irony that catches so many people. The less injured you are, the more guilty you look.
Think about it. If you were truely defending yourself against a vicious attack, you should have injuries too, right? But if you emerged from the fight relativley unscathed while your opponent has a broken jaw, what story does that tell the jury?
It tells the story of an aggressor, not a defender. It tells the story of someone who dominated the fight. And when the only visible injuries are on the other person - the same person who called 911 and framed themselves as the victim - you've got a serious problem. The jury sees a beaten up complainant pointing at a defendant without a scratch, and they draw obvious conclusions.
The person who wins the physical fight often loses the legal fight. Thats the uncomfortable truth nobody wants to hear. The better you are at defending yourself, the worse you look in court.
The Domestic Violence Automatic Arrest Problem
Domestic violence cases in Brooklyn operate under there own set of rules that make everything worse.
New York has mandatory arrest policies for domestic violence situations. This means that if police respond to a DV call and find probable cause that an assault occured, they MUST arrest someone. Not "should" arrest. Must arrest. The cops have no discretion to walk away and tell everyone to calm down.
So what happens when two people in a relationship get into a fight? The cops show up. They see injuries on both parties. They have to arrest somebody. So they pick whoever looks like the primary aggressor - which usually means whoever has fewer visible injuries, or whoever seems less sympathetic, or whoever the other person pointed at when the cops arrived.
Heres the devastating pattern we see over and over. Couple gets into an argument. She slaps him. He grabs her wrists to stop her from hitting him again. She has bruises on her wrists from being grabbed. He has no marks because a slap dosent leave lasting injury. Cops arrive, see bruises on her, arrest him.
She tells the cops she dosent want to press charges. Dosent matter. The prosecutor controls whether charges get filed, not the alleged victim. DA Eric Gonzalez has made domestic violence prosecution a top priority in Brooklyn. The case proceeds with or without her cooperation.
And now your sitting in Central Booking with a domestic violence assault charge, and the person who actualy attacked you first is at home. The system has already labeled you the aggressor. Good luck unwinding that.
The other person can even recant entirely - can tell prosecutors they started it, they lied, they want the case dropped. Prosecutors can still proceed. They have the 911 call. They have the police photos of her bruises. They have hospital records if she went to get checked out. All that paperwork becomes the case, even if the living breathing complainant says it shouldnt be.
What Happens in the First 48 Hours After Your Brooklyn Arrest
If your reading this after an arrest, understand that the clock is already running. Heres what the system does to you in the first two days:
After arrest, you'll be taken to Brooklyn Central Booking at 120 Schermerhorn Street. You'll wait - possibly for many hours - to be processed. Fingerprints. Photographs. Background check. The whole intake procedure.
Then comes arraignment. Under New York law, you must be brought before a judge within 24 hours of arrest. At arraignment, the judge decides whether to release you, set bail, or remand you to custody.
For assault charges, especialy if theres a domestic violence component or serious injuries alleged, you could be looking at significant bail. DA Eric Gonzalez has made domestic violence a top priority in Brooklyn. If your case involves a family member or intimate partner, expect the prosecution to push for protective orders and serious conditions. Orders of protection that keep you away from your own home. Supervised visitation with your own children. These conditions get imposed at arraignment, before your convicted of anything.
But heres the hidden problem with those first 48 hours: while your sitting in Central Booking, the prosecution is building there case.
The hospital is sending over medical records. The 911 call is being transcribed. The responding officers are writing up there reports with all the details they gathered at the scene. Witness statements are being collected. If there was surveillance footage from a nearby business, the DA's investigators are already pulling it.
All of this happens while you wait. And all of it is establishing the narrative that will be used against you.
Meanwhile, witnesses memories are getting fuzzy. Surveillance footage might get automatically deleted after 72 hours if nobody grabs it. The person who actualy saw what happened might move away or become unreachable. Evidence that could help you is evaporating while your stuck in a holding cell with no way to preserve it.
The earlier a skilled defense attorney can intervene, the more opportunity exists to shape the story before it gets completley locked in. To grab that surveillance footage before its gone. To interview witnesses while there memories are fresh. To get ahead of the narrative instead of chasing it.
How Spodek Law Group Fights Back
At Spodek Law Group, we understand that by the time most clients call us, the narrative has already been set. Multiple documents already identify them as the "offender." The system has already started treating them like theyre guilty. The 911 call is on file. The police report is written. The hospital records have been pulled.
Our job is to unravel that narrative. To find the inconsistancies in the complainants story. To identify what the "victim" isnt saying - and why. To challenge the assumptions that got baked into those initial reports when nobody was questioning them.
Sometimes that means finding witnesses the police didnt interview. The bouncer who saw the whole thing. The bartender who heard the complainant threaten you first. The random pedestrian who caught it on there phone. These witnesses exist in almost every case - but the police dont go looking for them because they already have there offender and there complainant.
Sometimes it means obtaining surveillance footage that contradicts the complainants version. Brooklyn is covered in cameras. Bodegas have cameras. Apartment buildings have cameras. Banks and ATMs have cameras. Traffic cameras. Police body cameras. Ring doorbells on every block. The footage often tells a different story then the 911 call.
Sometimes it means demonstrating that the injuries documented dont match the story being told. If the complainant claims they were strangled but has no marks on there neck. If they claim they were punched repeadly but only have one bruise. Medical experts can show that the physical evidence dosent support the narrative.
Self-defense cases require particular expertise becuase the burden falls on us to prove justification. We need to reconstruct what actualy happened - not what the 911 caller claimed happened - and present evidence that a reasonable person in your situation would have done exactly what you did.
Todd Spodek has handled assault cases across Brooklyn for years. He's seen how the system works to lock in narratives early and prosecute based on paperwork rather than truth. He knows that the 89% conviction rate in Brooklyn exists becuase most defendants are already behind before there lawyer gets involved.
The question is weather you can catch up. And that depends on getting the right defense team involved while there's still time to fight.
If you've been arrested for assault in Brooklyn, dont wait. Every hour that passes is an hour were the prosecutions narrative becomes more entrenched. Every day without a lawyer is a day were evidence is disappearing and witnesses are forgetting.
The Witness Problem That Could Save You Or Destroy You
Witnesses in assault cases are both incredibly valuable and incredibly frustrating. Valuable becuase eyewitness testimony can completly change how a jury sees the case. Frustrating becuase finding them, keeping them, and getting them to cooperate is harder then you'd think.
Most assaults happen in public or semi-public places. Outside bars. On subway platforms. In front of bodegas. At house parties. That means theres almost always someone who saw something. The problem is that by the time your lawyer gets involved, those witnesses have gone about there lives. They dont know their testimony matters. They dont want to get involved. They moved to New Jersey. There number changed.
The police dont help here. Once they have there complainant and there offender, they rarely go looking for additional witnesses who might complicate there case. If a bystander tries to tell the cops that the complainant actually threw the first punch, that information might not make it into the report. It dosent fit the narrative.
At Spodek Law Group, witness investigation is one of the first things we do. Canvassing the area. Checking social media for people who posted about the incident. Reviewing business records to see who was working nearby. Sometimes we find that witness who saw everything - the one who can testify that the complainant was the aggressor all along.
But timing matters. Two months after the incident, memories fade. People misremember. They become uncertain about details they were sure of at first. Three months later, they might not remember the incident at all. A year later, theyve forgotten your name and cant pick you out of a lineup.
Thats why early intervention matters so much. Not just for the legal strategy, but for the practical reality of building your defense.
What Your Next Move Needs to Be
The system that's going to judge you has already started without you. The 911 call is on record. The police report is written. The hospital forms are filed.
Your opponent had there chance to tell there story first. Now you need someone who can tell yours - and challenge theirs.
This isnt about guilt or innocence in some abstract moral sense. Its about what story the paperwork tells. Its about whether you end up with a misdemeanor you can eventually move past, or a violent felony that follows you forever.
Brooklyn's 89% trial conviction rate proves that prosecutors know how to win when the narrative favors them. They dont take cases they arent confident about. If your case made it past there screening, they think they can convict you. The question is whether your case becomes another statistic or whether you fight back.
The diffrence between freedom and years in prison can come down to a single broken bone. Can come down to who grabbed there phone first after the fight. Can come down to whether you had someone fighting the narrative while it was still being written.
Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. We answer the phone. We've seen how these cases work. And we know that the first story told isnt always the true one - but its the one that wins unless someone fights back.
The clock started when 911 was called. The narrative has been writing itself ever since. How much time do you have left before its set in stone?
