Preparing Documentation For Criminal Prosecution.

1. Collect the information needed to establish probable cause and support a request that investigative authorities investigate and prosecutorial authorities arrest, indict and prosecute specific individuals alleged to have committed a crime or crimes. Please note that hearsay can be used to establish “probable cause”. Although the following is no longer on the FBI web site, it is what they use to ask be included in a request for the investigation of an alleged crime (It is expected that other investigative authorities would ask for similar information.)

          a. The "Subject(s)" of the requested investigation/prosecution with his/her identifying information including full name, address, phone numbers, and job/position as appropriate and available. Once an investigation is started on a subject he becomes a “target” of an investigation, once indicted by a grand jury a “defendant.”

          b. A chronology of events including date(s), time(s), and location(s) of incident(s). normally in numbered paragraphs with numbered exhibits and descriptions of other evidence as appropriate.

          c. "Victim(s)" of the crime(s) with identifying information as appropriate and available.

          d. "Witness(es)" to the crime(s) and those with knowledge of the crime(s) with identifying information as appropriate and available.

          e. "Attorney(s)" for victims of the crimes with identifying information as appropriate and available.

          f. Any “report numbers and charges” with respect to the incident.

           g. The “criminal offenses” that the subject of the investigation has allegedly committed. The FBI does not normally ask that criminal offenses be provided with such requests. However, by providing them, investigators and prosecutors are more likely to act.

2. Prepare standard draft sample Letters Requesting that Subjects be Investigated, Arrested, Indicted and Prosecuted is addressed to an FBI field office and a United States Attorney. Draft Sample Letters Requesting an Investigation, Indictment and Prosecution of an Individual by Local Police Department Investigators and Local District Attorney is addressed to a county chief of police and a county attorney. Similar letters can be addressed to other local, state, federal investigators and prosecutors as well as the International Criminal Court and investigators and prosecutors in other countries whose people’s rights have been violated.

3. Rules 3 and 4 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure require that a complaint, which is a written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged, must be made under oath before a magistrate judge or, if none is reasonably available, before a state or local judicial officer. ... If the complaint or one or more affidavits filed with the complaint establish probable cause to believe that an offense has been committed and that the defendant committed it, the judge must issue an arrest warrant to an officer authorized to execute it. Normally FBI agents investigate and prepare criminal complaints and affidavits in support of a criminal complaint. However, if drafts of these documents are prepared for the FBI agents there is a better chance that they will go forward with the complaint and it should speed up the process.

4. Prepare Combination Multi-Count Criminal Complaint, Affidavit in Support of a Criminal Complaint and Application for a Warrant provides a Sample Format for such a document. This document is modeled after the Criminal Complaint & Affidavit Against Former Governor Blagojevich.

This particular format combines the criminal complaint and affidavit into one document. It is proposed as a sample for preparing similar documents for other individuals.

5. Rule 7 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires that Felony offenses, which are offenses punishable by death or by imprisonment for more than one year, must be prosecuted by an indictment [which is presented to a grand jury]. In General. The indictment or information must be a plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged and must be signed by an attorney for the government. It need not contain a formal introduction or conclusion. A count may incorporate by reference an allegation made in another count. A count may allege that the means by which the defendant committed the offense are unknown or that the defendant committed it by one or more specified means. For each count, the indictment or information must give the official or customary citation of the statute, rule, regulation, or other provision of law that the defendant is alleged to have violated.

6. Normally prosecutors prepare proposed indictments to be used to go before a grand jury. However, if draft proposed indictments are prepared for the prosecutors, there is a better chance that they will go forward with indictments.

7. A sample one-count indictments that could be modified and presented to a grand jury is available in the outstanding book the United States v Bush et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega. It is also available on WeThePeopleNow.org as Sample Proposed Indictment for a Grand Jury.

8. The multi-count indictment used to have former Governor Blagojevich is at: Indictment of Former Governor Blagojevich et al.