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Criminal Defense Lawyer John E. MacDonald, Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island
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Have you been charged with a sex crime? Facing a sex crime charge can completely shake your entire world. Society will often see sex crimes as some of the most disturbing criminal acts. These accusations can destroy a person’s reputation, career, and personal life. It’s vital that you speak with an experienced sex crimes attorney immediately after an arrest or accusation. A skilled sex crime defense lawyer can provide you with the appropriate steps to manage this difficult legal challenge.
Contact the Law Office of John E. MacDonald today to discuss your sex crimes charge and how to move forward.
Under Rhode Island law, many offenses are categorized as sex crimes. These are clearly defined in R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-37, and span everything from indecent exposure to rape.
But what these different charges all have in common is the fact that they’re very serious felonies. Each carries a severe potential sentence upon conviction—including a prison sentence of at least one year.
You’ll need a dependable, knowledgeable attorney to advocate aggressively on your behalf. As a veteran sex crimes defense lawyer, John E. MacDonald has vast experience representing clients faced with various sex crimes, including:
If you’re accused, charged, or under investigation of a sex crime, the sooner you contact a Rhode Island sex crime defense attorney, the better your chances of reaching a successful outcome.
The penalties for a sex crime will vary according to the severity of the charge. First-degree charges are more serious—and carry more severe penalties—than third-degree or second-degree charges.
If you’re charged with first-degree sexual assault in RI, the prosecution must prove that:
Rhode Island law defines “sexual penetration” as any kind of intercourse, intrusion, or oral sex related to the victim’s body.
Penalty: Minimum prison sentence of 10 years, up to life imprisonment.
If you’re charged with second-degree sexual assault in RI, the prosecution must prove that:
Rhode Island law defines “sexual contact” as intentional touching of the victim’s intimate parts—whether clothed or unclothed—for the purpose of sexual gratification, arousal, or assault.
Penalty: Minimum prison sentence of three years, up to 15 years.
If you’re charged with third-degree sexual assault in RI, the prosecution must prove that:
Penalty: Prison sentence for a maximum of five years.
If you’re charged with first-degree child molestation in RI, the prosecution must prove that:
Penalty: Minimum prison sentence of 25 years, up to life imprisonment.
If you’re charged with second-degree child molestation in RI, the prosecution must prove that:
Penalty: Minimum prison sentence of six years, up to 30 years.
If you’re charged with indecent solicitation of a minor in RI, the prosecution must prove that:
Rhode Island law defines “solicitation” as attempting to authorize, urge, command, incite, or advise another person to perform any kind of act (regardless of whether the act is to be performed via phone, computer, internet, or in-person).
Penalty: Minimum prison sentence of five years.
In a Rhode Island sex crimes case, every single thing you do carries a huge weight. Doing something as simple as discussing your case with loved ones can drastically alter your odds of winning a favorable outcome.
This is why the Law Office of Rhode Island Sex Crimes Attorney John E. MacDonald is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The sooner we start working on your case, the more time we have to build an aggressive, powerful defense strategy.
If you or a loved one is facing sex crimes charges in Rhode Island, call us today at 401.421.1440 for your free consultation. Don’t leave your freedom and your future up to chance.
Here are a few questions to consider when discussing your charge with a sex crime lawyer:
You should speak with a sex crimes attorney as soon as possible following your arrest. The sooner you call a Rhode Island sex crimes attorney to discuss your case, the better.
You see, a sex crime is one of the most serious offenses that someone can face. The faster you contact a sex crimes attorney, the more time your lawyer has to investigate your case and design an aggressive defense strategy. Don’t attend your arraignment hearing without speaking to your sex crimes attorney first.
When you ask your Rhode Island sex crime defense attorney the right questions throughout your initial consultation, you can better understand your legal matter and the possible solutions available. Some questions to ask your sex crime lawyer are:
Asking these questions at the Law Office of John E. MacDonald will allow your sex crime defense lawyer to explain their professional experience fighting for the rights of those accused. Your sex crimes attorney should be able to provide a long list of successful results, answer questions about your case, and explain how they plan to defend you.
Yes, Rhode Island does have a Romeo and Juliet law, which is formally known as a close-in-age exemption. Under this law, anyone over the age of 14 may legally consent so long as their partner is under the age of 18.
Said another way, a 15-year-old could legally consent to sex with a partner aged 16 or 17—even though RI’s age of consent is technically 16.
But this only applies to this specific scenario. If that same 15-year-old committed a sexual act with a 13-year-old, they could face several sex crimes charges in Rhode Island.
Yes, Rhode Island requires sex offender registration under R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-37.1-3 for any individual who has:
You should also know there are different levels of community notification. The severity of your crime and past convictions will determine which level you’re categorized into.
Your level will determine which identifying info is given to people in your community, such as your address, a photo of you, and a description of the offense you committed.
Yes, a sex crime conviction may be expunged in Rhode Island if you meet the very specific eligibility criteria:
Said another way, your sex crime conviction won’t be eligible for expungement in RI if you were convicted of:
Speaking with an experienced, knowledgeable Rhode Island sex crime defense lawyer is the best way to understand whether expungement is a viable option for you.
Contact the Law Office of John E. MacDonald immediately if charged with a sex crime. When facing a sex crime charge, you need to work with defense lawyers specializing in this type of crime.
Rhode Island takes sex crime charges seriously, so your defense needs to be handled by competent sex crime lawyers with a strong background in sex crime law and experience defending those with similar charges. If you’re ready to discuss your charges with a skilled Rhode Island sex crimes attorney, contact the Rhode Island Criminal Defense Lawyer Office of John E. MacDonald today.
Here’s an overview of the five defense strategies most commonly used in Rhode Island sex crime cases, and how to know which might be appropriate for your case.
If the allegations against you are exaggerated, taken out of context, or outright false, that’s a viable defense—and it’s more common than you might expect. Accusations can arise from a custody dispute, a contentious divorce, a consensual encounter that became complicated after the fact, or a personal grievance that escalated.
What this defense focuses on is the accuser’s account and where it doesn’t hold up.
This can include inconsistencies in the timeline, contradictions between what they told police and what prior communications actually show, or gaps in corroboration.
An aggressive Rhode Island sex crimes attorney will investigate all of it: texts, emails, social media records, and any witnesses whose accounts contradict what’s being claimed.
Mistaken identity falls into this picture as well. If you weren’t there, or you weren’t the person described, a solid alibi backed by physical evidence can be decisive because eyewitness identification is far less reliable than you might expect.
Yes. Dismissal is a real outcome when the prosecution’s case has identifiable weaknesses. Common routes include insufficient evidence, significant credibility problems with the complaining witness, constitutional violations that result in suppressed evidence, or an account that cannot be independently corroborated.
Understanding how Rhode Island classifies sex crimes as felonies and misdemeanors can also affect what options are available to you, including charge reduction. The earlier an attorney starts working on your case, the more of those options remain open.
If the sexual contact in question was consensual, that can be the foundation of your entire defense. Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-37-1, Rhode Island law evaluates consent in the context of specific legal definitions of sexual penetration and sexual contact.
There are situations where consent is legally off the table—if the alleged victim was a minor or was legally incapacitated, for example—but if neither of those applies to your case, this defense is worth pursuing carefully.
The key pieces of evidence for this strategy usually come down to a detailed factual record assembled from the history between you and the other party, communications before and after the alleged incident, and witness testimony that supports your account.
If you’re already facing Rhode Island sexual assault charges, the sooner you and your attorney build this record of events together, the stronger your defense can be.
If you were searched without a warrant, questioned after an illegal detention, or interrogated without being read your Miranda rights, the evidence that came out of that process may not be usable against you.
The reality is, law enforcement doesn’t always follow procedure—and when they don’t, your attorney can file a motion to suppress in Rhode Island Superior courts.
When a suppression motion succeeds, that evidence is removed from the prosecution’s case entirely. Depending on what gets excluded, the case against you can weaken considerably or collapse entirely.
This is one of the reasons why hiring an attorney immediately matters. Identifying a constitutional violation requires reviewing the full investigation from the start, and that review has to happen before trial.
Yes. Under the Fourth Amendment and Rhode Island court precedent, evidence obtained through unlawful searches, illegal seizures, or unconstitutional interrogations can be suppressed—meaning the prosecution cannot use it at trial.
In Rhode Island Superior courts, this is done through a pre-trial motion to suppress. Whether that motion is viable in your case depends on a close examination of exactly how and when evidence was gathered, which is one of the first things an experienced defense attorney will look at.
If you were contacted online by someone who turned out to be an undercover officer—and the conversation escalated in ways you didn’t initiate—the entrapment defense may be relevant to your situation.
Rhode Island law enforcement does conduct online sting operations, particularly in cases involving Rhode Island solicitation of a minor charges or child pornography investigations. Typically, officers pose as minors on apps or in chat rooms.
The key question to address here is, did the government induce you to commit a crime you weren’t already predisposed to commit?
Answering that requires a close look at who initiated the contact, how the conversation developed, and how aggressively the interaction was pushed. It’s not an easy strategy to pursue, but when the facts support it, it can be a powerful one.
Yes, but only within legal limits. Law enforcement can use undercover officers and fictitious online personas to investigate suspected crimes. What they cannot do is manufacture criminal intent in someone who had none before government contact began.
When that line is crossed, an entrapment defense may be available to you. Whether it applies requires a thorough review of the investigation from the very first interaction forward.
If the prosecution has DNA or physical evidence, your attorney will examine it rather than simply accept it at face value. Chain of custody problems, lab contamination, analyst error, and flawed testing protocols are all areas where forensic evidence can be challenged.
Furthermore, expert witnesses can be retained to go up against the prosecution’s analysts directly, in court, on the record.
If there’s no physical evidence, the case rests entirely on testimony—and the question becomes how credible that testimony actually is. Under the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence, your defense attorney has significant tools to test what the jury hears and how it’s presented.
Given the severity of Rhode Island sexual assault penalties, no angle should go unexamined.
Yes. Prosecutors in Rhode Island regularly bring sex crime cases without any physical or forensic evidence, and testimony alone can support a conviction if believed beyond a reasonable doubt.
The absence of DNA is not a defense on its own, but what it does mean is that the prosecution’s case rests heavily on the complaining witness.
That’s where your defense focuses in this situation—on testing the consistency, credibility, and motivation behind that testimony.
The strategies covered in this guide can make the difference between a conviction and a dismissal, or between registering as a sex offender for life and walking away with your future intact.
And they all depend on time, because the truth is, witnesses who might corroborate your account become harder to locate. Meanwhile, evidence that could help you, like security footage, can be erased if too much time passes.
Prosecutors move quickly and methodically to build their case, and the longer you wait, the fewer options remain.
You need a Rhode Island sex crimes lawyer who will analyze every step of the investigation, build a factual record to challenge the prosecution’s account, and prepare to fight your case at every stage—from arraignment through trial.John E. MacDonald has successfully defended clients against sex crime charges in Rhode Island’s District and Superior Courts for more than 30 years. Call (401) 421-1440 or contact us online today to schedule your free consultation.
DISCLAIMER: This site and any information contained herein are intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Seek competent legal counsel for advice on any legal matter. Also, the Rhode Island Supreme Court licenses all lawyers in the general practice of law, but does not license or certify any lawyer as an expert or specialist in any field of practice.
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