The First 24 Hours After Someone Calls 911
Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the reality of domestic violence charges in Brooklyn - not the sanitized version other attorneys present, not the legal fiction that "innocent people have nothing to worry about," but the actual truth about what happens when someone dials 911 and says your name.
Heres what nobody tells you. The moment that call connects, the system activates against you. Not after an investigation. Not after anyone hears your side. The moment those words leave the caller's mouth.
New York operates under mandatory arrest for domestic violence. This means police responding to a domestic incident must make an arrest if they have probable cause to believe a family offense occurred. Even if the person who called begs them not to. Even if they say it was a misunderstanding. Even if they admit they were the aggressor and you were defending yourself. The officer's hands are tied by policy designed to avoid liability - not designed to find truth.
Think about that for a moment. The accuser loses control the instant they dial. You lose your freedom. And nobody in that room has any incentive to figure out what actually happened.
By the time you're processed through Brooklyn Central Booking, several things have already occurred without your input: You've been arrested. You have a criminal record now - even if charges are eventually dismissed, the arrest exists. An order of protection has likely been issued, meaning you cannot return to your own home, cannot contact your family, cannot see your children except through supervised visitation that takes weeks to arrange. Your job doesn't know where you are. Your life has been suspended.
And the investigation? That starts after you're already in custody. Not before.
The cruel irony here is that the policies creating this situation were designed with good intentions. In the 1980s and 1990s, police often refused to make arrests in domestic disputes. Victims died because officers saw domestic violence as a "private matter" and walked away. Mandatory arrest was the solution - force police to act, regardless of their personal judgment.
But like many well-intentioned policies, it created new problems while solving old ones. Now the pendulum has swung completley the other direction. Police must arrest, even when the situation clearly doesnt warrant it. Even when the "victim" was actualy the aggressor. Even when the whole thing was a verbal argument that got out of hand and neither person laid a finger on the other.
The same 911 recording that captured your accuser's allegations also captured your panicked response. Prosecutors will use every word. "I didnt mean to hurt her" becomes an admission. "She was attacking me first" becomes an acknowledgment that physical contact occured. The call you thought would help explain your side becomes prosecution exhibit A.
Why Your Accuser Cant Save You (And Might Not Want To)
One of the most painful realizations our clients face is this: the person who made the accusation often cant undo it. Even if they want to.
Once police file charges, the case belongs to the State of New York. The accuser becomes a witness - not a party to the case. They can tell the prosecutor they want charges dropped. The prosecutor can ignore them completley. And in domestic violence cases, prosecutors almost always do.
OK so heres the twisted logic: the system assumes victims are pressured to recant. They assume youve threatened or manipulated your accuser into asking for dismissal. So the more your accuser advocates for you, the more the prosecution suspects coercion. Their attempts to help you become evidence against you.
But theres another reality attorneys know but rarely discuss publicly. Some accusers dont want to help you. The accusation served a purpose - leverage in a divorce, advantage in a custody battle, a way to remove you from the home during property disputes. Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys have all witnessed cases where the criminal justice system was used not as a shield for protection but as a sword for personal advantage.
And heres were it gets concerning. If an accuser later admits they exagerated or lied, prosecutors sometimes charge them with filing a false report. This creates a perverse incentive: once someone makes an accusation, admitting it was false means risking their own criminal charges. So the lie persists. And you pay for it.
Approximately 700,000 individuals are wrongfuly arrested for domestic violence each year nationally. Many of these occur during divorces or custody battles. The system knows this happens. It prosecutes anyway.
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office has a dedicated Domestic Violence Bureau. Their job is prosecution - not truth-finding, not mediation, not helping couples work things out. Prosecution. They have victim advocates who help accusers stay committed to the case. They have specialized prosecutors who know every trick to get convictions. What they dont have is anyone whose job is to ask "did this actualy happen the way the accuser says?"
Thats your defense attorneys job. And if you dont have one yet, nobody in that system is asking that question at all.
The Order of Protection Trap
Within hours of your arrest, a judge will likely issue an order of protection. This is supposed to be about safety. In practice, its often about leverage.
Heres the thing about family court orders of protection in New York: they require no proof. Just allegations. The person seeking the order says they feel afraid, and a judge can issue an order that removes you from your own home for years.
Not months. Years.
Standard orders last two years. If theres allegations of "aggravating circumstances" - which basicly means the accuser claims there was prior violence or that you violated a previous order - the order can extend to five years. Five years locked out of your home, your life, your children's daily existance. Based on allegations alone.
And heres what catches people: violating an order of protection is a seperate crime. Even if the person who has the order invites you over. Even if they initiate contact. Even if they beg you to come home. If you show up, YOU are arrested for criminal contempt. They have no power to waive the order - only the court can modify it. The order protects you from yourself, in a sense. Except its not protecting you. Its trapping you.
Criminal contempt in the second degree is a Class A misdemeanor - up to one year in jail. First degree is a Class E felony - up to four years in prison. The original allegation might get dismissed, but the order violation? Thats a whole new case.
What Todd Spodek tells clients facing these situations is that the order of protection creates a minefield around your entire previous life. Your home. Your workplace if your accuser works nearby. Your childrens school. Places youve gone for years become criminal violations to enter.
The order also affects your firearms rights immediatly. Under both New York and federal law, anyone subject to a final order of protection is prohibited from possessing firearms. If you own guns legally, you must surrender them. If you work in law enforcement or security, your career may be over regardless of whether criminal charges are ever proven. The order of protection itself - not a conviction, just the order - triggers these consequences.
And good luck getting the order modified. Family court judges are reluctant to lift orders because if they do and something happens, theyre liable. The safe choice for the judge is to leave the order in place. Your safety, your access to your home, your relationship with your children - these are secondary to the judges career protection.
Why 94% of Cases Get Dismissed - And Why That Doesnt Help You
After New York's 2019 discovery reforms, something remarkable happened. Dismissal rates in domestic violence cases exploded. By 2023, aproximately 94 percent of domestic violence cases in NYC were being dismissed.
Read that again. Ninety-four percent.
This should be good news, right? It means most people charged with domestic violence eventualy have their cases thrown out. Justice prevails.
Except justice doesnt feel like spending eighteen months fighting charges that shouldnt have been filed. Justice doesnt feel like loosing your apartment because you couldnt enter it for a year. Justice doesnt feel like watching your children grow up through supervised visitation windows while your ex establishes a "new normal" without you.
The 94% dismissal rate proves something the system wont admit: most of these cases were weak from the start. Before 2019, prosecutors could hide their evidence until trial. They could charge cases they knew they couldnt prove, gambling that defendants would plead guilty just to end the ordeal. Discovery reform forced them to show their hand early. And when they did, cases collapsed.
But the arrests still happened. The orders of protection still issued. The lives still got destroyed. The punishment was the process itself.
Heres the pattern we see at Spodek Law Group constantly. Someone gets arrested on domestic violence allegations. Their case takes 12 to 18 months to resolve. During that time, they loose there job from missing work for court dates. They cant pay child support because they dont have income. The family court holds the domestic violence charges against them when determining custody. By the time the criminal case gets dismissed, the damage is permanant.
And that arrest? It stays on your record. New York's Clean Slate Act started taking affect in November 2024, but the sealing process takes years and doesnt apply immediately. Every background check shows that domestic violence arrest - dismissed or not.
Think about what a prospective employer sees. They run a background check. "Domestic violence arrest" appears. Does it matter that charges were dismissed? Does it matter that the case was weak from the start? Does it matter that your accuser later admitted they exagerated? All the employer sees is those three words. And most employers move on to the next candidate rather then taking the time to understand the context.
The same pattern plays out in family court. Custody decisions are supposed to be based on "best interests of the child." Judges look at many factors. But a pending domestic violence case - even one thats clearly headed for dismissal - weighs heavily. The judge thinks "better safe then sorry" and grants primary custody to the accuser. Eighteen months later when your case is dismissed, the custody arrangement has become the status quo. Courts dont like disrupting childrens routines. The temporary arrangement becomes permanant.
Thats the real punishment. Not prison. Not fines. The slow destruction of everything you built while the system takes its time deciding your innocent.
What False Accusations Actually Look Like in Brooklyn Courts
Nobody wants to talk about false accusations because the topic has been politicized. But defense attorneys see the reality every day.
False accusations of domestic violence are most likely during contested divorces and custody battles. This isnt speculation - its documented pattern that judges, prosecutors and attorneys all recognize. When theres a dispute over children or property, a domestic violence accusation shifts the entire dynamic. Suddenly one party has an order of protection. Suddenly one party has exclusive use of the marital home. Suddenly one party controls when and whether the children see the other parent.
The accusation itself becomes leverage, regardless of weather the underlying facts support it.
But heres the hidden connection most people miss: immigration status. A domestic violence charge - even one thats eventualy dismissed - can trigger deportation proceedings. Its considered a "crime of moral turpitude" under federal immigration law. Someone going through a difficult divorce with an immigrant spouse has enourmous power. Make an accusation, and suddenly your spouse faces not just criminal charges but potential removal from the country.
The accused in these situations faces an impossible choice. Fight the charges for eighteen months, potentially loose your immigration status, definately loose access to your children during the process. Or plead guilty to something you didnt do, accept the criminal record, hope the immigration consequences dont materialize.
Most people dont understand what its like to be accused of something you didnt do and have no way to prove it. Domestic violence cases often come down to one person's word against anothers. There might be no witnesses. No video. No physical evidence. Just two people telling different stories, and a system that defaults to beleiving the accuser.
Thats not justice. Thats a coin flip with your life on the table.
We've seen cases were the accuser sent text messages threatening to "destroy" the defendant if they didnt agree to divorce terms. We've seen cases were accusers posted on social media about their plans to make false reports. We've seen cases were the timing of accusations - filed the same week as custody motions - made the strategic motivation transparant.
And yet these cases still required months or years to resolve. The evidence of false accusation was clear. The system moved slowly anyway. Because the system isnt designed to identify false accusations quickly. Its designed to prosecute, and false accusations look exactly like real ones at the intake stage.
The difference only becomes aparent through investigation. Thorough, aggresive investigation by a defense attorney who knows were to look and what questions to ask. Without that investigation, the system proceeds on autopilot toward conviction or plea deal.
The Defense Strategies That Actually Work
If your facing domestic violence charges in Brooklyn, you need to understand what actually matters in these cases - not the legal theory, but the practial reality of how cases get won or dismissed.
First and most important: stop talking. Your instinct is to explain, to tell your side, to correct the record. Every word you say to police, to prosecutors, to the accuser's family becomes ammunition. The right to remain silent exists because the system will use your words against you. Silence cannot be held against you in court. Explanations absolutley can.
Second: understand what prosecutors need. They need the accuser to testify. Without that testimony, most domestic violence cases collapse. This doesnt mean you should contact your accuser - that would violate the order of protection and create new charges. But it means your attorney can investigate weather the accuser actualy intends to cooperate with prosecution.
Third: the timeline matters. If you retained an attorney immediatly after arrest, your attorney can request a preliminary hearing, challenge the order of protection, and potentially get charges reduced or dismissed before they snowball into permanant life damage.
Fourth: documentation is everything. Text messages, emails, witness statements, anything that corroberates your version of events. Many accusations fall apart when the documented record contradicts the accusers narrative. But that evidence needs to be preserved and organized before it disappears.
At Spodek Law Group, what we've seen repeatedly is that early intervention changes outcomes. The system moves fast - your response needs to be faster. Within 24 hours of arrest, critical decisions are being made about orders of protection, custody arrangements, and charge severity. Having an attorney in that room changes the trajectory.
Todd Spodek has handled hundreds of domestic violence cases in Brooklyn courts. The pattern is clear: clients who wait lose options. Clients who act immediatly preserve them.
Fifth: self-defense is real and it works. New York law allows you to use reasonable force to defend yourself against unlawful physical force. If you were attacked first and responded proportionatly, thats not domestic violence - thats self-defense. But proving self-defense requires evidence: defensive wounds documented by medical professionals, witness statements, 911 recordings that capture who was screaming threats. Your attorney needs time to gather this evidence before it disappears.
Sixth: the discovery process matters enormosly. Since 2019, prosecutors must share their evidence early in the case. A skilled defense attorney uses this to identify weaknesses immediatly. Are there inconsistancies in the accuser's statements? Did the medical examination contradict the alleged injuries? Are there witnesses the prosecutor is avoiding? Early discovery review often reveals that the case is weaker then it appears - information you can use to negotiate dismissal rather then gambling on trial.
The system is designed to pressure you into pleading guilty. Prosecutors offer plea deals to misdemeanors instead of felonies. They offer adjournments in contemplation of dismissal if you admit wrongdoing. These offers seem generous when your facing years in prison. But they carry lifelong consequenses - criminal records, immigration issues, custody implications. Before you accept anything, you need someone who can tell you weather the case against you would actualy survive trial.
Why Timing Isnt Just Important - Its Everything
Your reading this because something happened. Maybe you were arrested. Maybe someone you love was. Maybe your worried about an accusation that hasnt materialized yet but feels inevitable.
Whatever brought you here, understand this: the window for effective action is measured in hours, not weeks.
Once an order of protection issues, you cannot return home. Once custody arrangements shift, they become the status quo that family courts are reluctant to disturb. Once your arrested, that record exists even if charges never stick. The system creates facts on the ground that become extremley difficult to undo.
Heres what the next 48 hours determine: Weather you spend the next year fighting from a position of strength or scrambling to recover ground already lost. Weather your children see you as present or absent during formative months. Weather your employer knows you as someone who handled a difficult situation professionally or someone who disappeared without explanation.
The prosecution has resources. The Brooklyn Family Justice Center provides victims with counselors, advocates, and attorneys working together to push cases forward. You need someone in your corner with equivalent fire power.
The call costs nothing. Not making it costs everything you've built.
Spodek Law Group handles domestic violence defense across Brooklyn - from Williamsburg to Bay Ridge, from DUMBO to East New York. We've seen how these cases start and how they end. More importantly, we know how to change the ending.
Call us at 212-300-5196. The system started moving the moment that 911 call connected. Your response needs to start now.
