Possession With Intent to Distribute in New Jersey - N.J.S. 2C:35-5

Parsippany Drug Crime Attorney Fighting Your Charges

While some people are charged with illegal possession of drugs for their own personal use, others are charged with illegal possession of drugs for the purpose of distributing them to others. A person can distribute drugs by giving, selling or even just delivering the controlled substances to another individual.

Law enforcement officers and prosecutors usually use certain signs to determine that a person intended to distribute drugs. For example, the defendant might have had a particularly large amount of drugs, or the drugs might have been separated into a large number of individual packages. In some cases, however, officers and prosecutors misconstrue these so-called signs, therefore causing them to jump to the wrong conclusions.

In your drug crime case, you might need help proving that you only possessed drugs for your own personal use, meaning you should be charged with a lesser offense. Or, you might need help proving that you did not even possess the drugs in the first place. Whatever you are trying to achieve in your case, you can turn to The Law Offices of Christopher G. Porreca, P.C. for a highly skilled Parsippany criminal defense lawyer! To help get you started on the right path, our firm has provided some helpful information below about the offense of possession with intent to distribute.

Disproving the Allegations

In order to prove that a person committed possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, the elements of possession must be proven. This means that it must be proven that the substance was actually under the defendant's control. In some cases, the drugs are found in places that multiple people had access to--not just the defendant. In that kind of scenario, there may be a lack of proof that the drugs actually belonged to the defendant and not someone else.

Furthermore, it must be proven that the offense was committed "knowingly or purposely." If the defendant did not actually know that drugs were in his or her possession, then there is no way that person could have committed possession with intent to distribute. For example, someone may have been given a package to deliver without being told that it contained illegal drugs.