Need a lawyer over a stolen Marketplace bike
My kid brother thought he scored a deal on a used motorcycle through Facebook Marketplace. He met the seller in a grocery store parking lot, paid cash, and came home with a handwritten bill of sale and a title that looked real to him. Two weeks later the police ran the plate, the bike came back stolen, and now they're treating him like he knew exactly what he was buying. He still has the entire message thread, but the seller's profile has disappeared. Where do we find a criminal attorney in New York who won't treat this like some generic theft case?
That is a rough situation. I know a guy who bought a used snowmobile the same way, and the police seized it six months later without any warning. The message thread and the bill of sale are your brother's strongest pieces of evidence because they show he acted in good faith. A good criminal defense lawyer in New York will look at those messages and understand that this is a stolen property case, not a theft case. The seller disappearing is actually common in these scams, and the police often focus on the buyer because they are easier to find. Your brother needs an attorney who handles property crimes and understands how Marketplace scams work. Most initial consultations are free, so you can shop around. Also, save every single piece of communication and screenshot everything before it gets deleted. I had to send some legal documents to a lawyer once and used fax without a fax machine through an app because they insisted on fax for signature pages. That turned out to be faster than email. Check local bar associations for referrals, and avoid attorneys who only do traffic tickets. This is a serious matter, but it is not hopeless if you handle it right from the start.