Your Trajectory After Your Los Angeles Petty Theft Charge: Up Or Down?

Maybe you stole some costume jewelry and brooches from a Venice Beach bodega. Or perhaps your Los Angeles petty theft charge came packaged with additional charges, like grand theft, robbery, assault, etc.

In any case, you want to avoid serious punishment and “put the crime behind you.” But you’re also “not that concerned,” on some level, since your crime is relatively minor.

But you should be concerned!

Right now, whether you realize it or not, you are at a pivotal point in your life. You face two paths – the path of incremental improvement or the path of incremental decline.

Path of Incremental Decline
If you follow this path, your Los Angeles petty theft charge will be just the beginning of a long list of mishaps and snafus that could cause your life (or at least elements of it) to unravel.

For instance, let’s say you fail to learn lessons from your petty theft charge: you continue to hang out with the same people who encouraged you to break the law in the first place. Perhaps it’s a group of “bad kids” at your school or a group of misfits at your company. In any event, you carry on with your old ways of thinking and acting… and wind up involved in a much bigger criminal crisis. This next time, you net a substantial jail sentence — possibly even a felony charge. Now, you’re no longer able to find work easily, secure loans, or even form new relationships easily. Depression, anxiety and frustration can set in. The wheel of recidivism turns. You get arrested yet again for a charge and this time wind up with a much longer stint behind bars.

That scenario is not necessarily in your future. But it could be. A misdemeanor petty theft charge is a serious red flag that this could be you someday.

Path of Incremental Improvement
You recognize that you made mistakes – either by being friends with bad people or by failing to manage your impulses or proclivities. So you get appropriate help. You find good mentors. You are honest with yourself. You ditch the bad people and find better folks to hang out with — people with more integrity.

In this scenario, you really DO put the petty theft charges behind you and grow to have a burgeoning career, successful relationships, and productive life full of service, compassion, and joy.

Which path would you like to be on?

If you think that a single huge decision separates these two paths, you’re wrong. What separates these two paths are the many SMALL decisions that you make (or fail to make) along the way. There is no one pivotal movement that decides your fate (usually).

Begin to take the active, affirmative path to improvement by getting in touch with a petty theft attorney with the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers now.

Attorney Kraut is an ex-prosecutor, so he really knows how prosecutors operate in Los Angeles theft cases and how defendants need to position themselves for strategic defense. Mr. Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated attorney with excellent connections in the legal community and a compassionate, friendly disposition. He can help you rebound from what’s happened, rebuild your life and feel more confident going forward.