Defending Yourself against Bankruptcy Fraud Charges
It is well known that dealing with bankruptcy fraud can be quite annoying, and this is not because you are losing your business and the investments of your creditors, but because you can be immediately accused with the attempt to perform a bankruptcy fraud. What usually happens is that most individuals fail to complete the necessary legal forms correctly and soon realize that they are monitored by various state agencies like the department of justice and even IRS. Such acts performed either naturally or intentionally can be regarded as bankruptcy fraud and require a lot of knowledge in order to be able to protect yourself and do everything possible in order to stay away from punishment.
However, before you get started note down a few things that you are going to need. Gather them now and you won’t have any trouble in the long run. Yeah… bureaucracy! So you should have an attorney first of all; then put your hands on a copy of paperwork, the records of all your past payments, all the copies of the bank statements, credit report copies and any other references in format of documents that you can get. Before you start a defensive process against a bankruptcy fraud charge you need to have these otherwise it is going to take forever to get out of this mess.
Use the internet to do your research before you get the services provided by any law company out there. You need to hire some guys that have experience in helping others deal with bankruptcy fraud because this is what you are going to try to defend against. Besides this make sure that they know what business and corporate law is all about (just in case). It might happen that you even stumble upon an investigation team that can provide everything from gathering all the necessary paperwork to finding the “holes” in the systems in order to provide protection in this bankruptcy fraud charge case in the court. Note down that most of these fees are going to require some fees to be paid. Yes, it might be expensive, but is it better to spend the next five years in prison or try to gather a sum close to 300k? You decide…
A legal copy of your updated credit report file is also going to be necessary in the court. Don’t worry; it can easily be purchased, in case you had no clue about this. The credit report that you are about to deal with represents the independent verification of your financial status. It might either be strong or weak. Signs of weakness usually stand for as a good reason for filing for bankruptcy. You should be aware that this report is not enough to win the bankruptcy charges in the court, but shouldn’t also be ignored. Use it as a complementary file when providing proof for your financial hardship situation. After all, this is the main reason why you and your companions decided to declare bankruptcy.
You are also going to be required to gather all existing bank statements from the period of the process in order to show them that you are doing all it takes to give the most accurate accounting records possible. The statement issued by your bank can be placed next to the income reports gathered for government authorities for them to leave you alone with those bankruptcy fraud legal charges. You need to make them believe that you are innocent as fast as possible and that’s why getting all the papers and data that you can is more than crucial.
During your personal investigation, your attorney should also help. Work with him on locating various character references and other witnesses that can speak in front of the court in order to run the case in your favor. The more perfectly legal witnesses you have, the better. So who can be these people? Use your imagination and call everyone that you have known lately. First of all, your business partners; they were monitoring your actions and the actions of the company. Co-workers can also provide some great help, in case they are speaking what should be said or are correctly instructed. Even your neighbors can easily mention some of the less important aspects of your activity during the last several years, aspects that can weight a loss during the bankruptcy process.
In case your business had various sister companies or offices in other countries or continents you should always clear everything up from the jurisdictional point of view. This is going to help in making a clear idea why you had to declare bankruptcy after all. It is a known fact that some courts can move very important bankruptcy cases out of your little state community to even a nationwide level in order to seek more objectivity from even higher justice faces. Challenge this move by understanding that this is an effort to stay away from fair hearing by the prosecution. Be wise and learn to see the details of every single move in case you are decided to prove your innocence and to manage to start all over in a few months without being necessary to face prison or a fee for up to a quarter million dollars.
The moment you declare bankruptcy and find yourself in the court against you creditors, you have to allow both legal teams to investigate and study your inventory closely. Don’t try to hide anything from them because it might be used and turned against you in the long run. When performing something like this, make sure that you highlight the balance between sales numbers and the available inventory in order to make that big step away in avoiding accusations of possible concealment of assets and hidden income.
If you have the chance to research and present those payments in connection with any court-mandated suspensions, like the money paid to support a former spouse, or the money spent in taking care of a small child – it can definitely help in your defense against charges like fraud. Such record files can provide a good support when trying to determine the hard financial aspects that bankruptcy brought upon you.