Being accused of sexual assault when you did not commit one is a specific kind of crisis, and the instincts most people follow in the first 48 hours tend to make it worse. The Law Offices of Anthony Carbone defends these cases in Superior Court across New Jersey, where sex offense charges carry mandatory prison terms, lifetime supervision, and registration consequences that survive the sentence. Most allegations that reach a courtroom are made in good faith. Some are not, and some rest on honest confusion about a night neither person remembers clearly. The law does not sort those categories for you. Evidence does.
What should you do in the first days after an accusation?
Stop talking and get a lawyer before you give any statement. That includes conversations with detectives, campus Title IX investigators, your employer’s HR department, and the person making the allegation.
Detectives are permitted to interview you without telling you that you are a suspect, and anything you say can be used against you whether or not you are in custody. The instinct to explain yourself, to text the accuser asking what happened, or to apologize for something unrelated is understandable and routinely becomes the strongest evidence the State has. A message that reads “I’m sorry if I hurt you” is offered at trial as an admission.
Do not contact the accuser, directly or through friends. Beyond the evidentiary damage, it can expose you to witness tampering charges under N.J.S.A. 2C:28-5 or violate a protective order you may not know exists.
What charges and penalties are actually on the table?
New Jersey grades these offenses by degree under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-1 through 2C:14-8, and the sentencing ranges are steep:
- Aggravated sexual assault, a first degree crime, carries 10 to 20 years in state prison.
- Sexual assault, a second degree crime, carries 5 to 10 years.
- Aggravated criminal sexual contact, third degree, carries 3 to 5 years.
- Criminal sexual contact, fourth degree, carries up to 18 months.
The No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2, applies to aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault, requiring service of 85 percent of the sentence before parole eligibility. A conviction also triggers Megan’s Law registration under N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2 and Parole Supervision for Life under N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6.4. Pretrial Intervention is generally unavailable. There is no statute of limitations for these offenses under N.J.S.A. 2C:1-6, which is why allegations from ten or twenty years ago can still be charged.
How does the case move through the courts?
Indictable sex offenses start with a complaint, a first appearance within 48 hours of arrest, and often a prosecutor’s motion for pretrial detention under the Criminal Justice Reform Act that took effect January 1, 2017. Cash bail is no longer the mechanism. A judge decides whether you are released with conditions or held.
The prosecutor must then present the case to a grand jury for an indictment. Post-indictment discovery is governed by Rule 3:13-3, and the State is required to turn over its file, including material that helps you. That file typically contains the recorded statement, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner report if a forensic exam was performed, DNA results from the State Police lab, and the accuser’s prior statements to a Sexual Assault Response Team advocate or detective.
A separate civil protective order under the Sexual Assault Survivor Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-13, may be filed alongside the criminal case, with a final hearing set within ten days of a temporary order.
What evidence tends to matter most?
Timelines and digital records. Phone location data, rideshare receipts, building access logs, bar and restaurant card charges, and surveillance footage all carry dates that memory does not. Much of it is overwritten or deleted on a business cycle measured in weeks, so preservation letters need to go out early.
Inconsistencies in the accounts given to different people at different times matter too, and defense counsel develops them through prior statements rather than through attacks on character. New Jersey’s rape shield statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7, sharply limits evidence of an accuser’s prior sexual conduct, and using it requires a written motion and an in camera hearing, generally filed at least 14 days before trial. Counsel who treats the statute as an obstacle to be talked around usually loses the motion.
Consent under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2 turns on whether there was physical force or coercion, or an inability to consent. State v. Cuni and related case law make clear that voluntary intoxication does not automatically negate capacity, and that question is frequently the entire contested issue.
When does a false report become its own offense?
Knowingly filing a fictitious report with law enforcement is a crime under N.J.S.A. 2C:28-4, graded as a fourth degree offense or a disorderly persons offense depending on the conduct. Prosecutors charge it rarely and only where the proof is clear, and pursuing it is not a defense strategy. Your case is won by undermining the State’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not by prosecuting the person on the other side.
If charges are dismissed or you are acquitted, N.J.S.A. 2C:52-6 allows expungement of the arrest record without a waiting period.
Where The Law Offices of Anthony Carbone fits in
An accusation is not proof, and the people who make these reports deserve to be heard just as much as the accused deserves a defense. Both things are true at once, and the courtroom is where they get sorted out. If you are under investigation or have already been charged in New Jersey, The Law Offices of Anthony Carbone can step in before you say something that cannot be walked back, move to preserve the records that support your account, and hold the State to its burden.