Dallas Sex Crimes Attorney

A sex-crime allegation in Dallas County is one of the most serious things a person can face — and one of the most defensible when a lawyer is involved early. L and L Law Group defends the full range of sex offenses, from sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault to indecency with a child, online solicitation, indecent exposure, and possession of child pornography. This page explains the offenses, how Dallas County actually handles these cases — from the Frank Crowley Courts Building to booking at Lew Sterrett to forensic interviews at the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center — what registration and other consequences are at stake, and why pre-arrest representation matters. If you or someone you love has been accused, call (972) 370-5060.

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What Sex Offenses Does L and L Law Group Defend in Dallas?

“Sex crime” is not one charge — it is a broad family of offenses under the Texas Penal Code, each with its own elements, punishment range, and consequences. In Dallas County we defend the full spectrum, and understanding where a specific accusation fits is the first step in building a defense. Below are the offenses that most often bring people to our office, with links to our in-depth pages on each.

Sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault

Sexual assault under Texas Penal Code Sec. 22.011 is generally a second-degree felony, punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, and it becomes a first-degree felony in certain circumstances. Aggravated sexual assault under Sec. 22.021 is a first-degree felony punishable by 5 to 99 years or life, and it carries a 25-year minimum term when the complainant is a young child. Because these are the most serious of the adult and child sex offenses, we maintain a dedicated sexual assault charge page and a deeper Dallas sexual assault defense page that walk through consent, the elements, SANE examinations, and the evidence problems these cases present.

Offenses involving children

A large share of sex-offense prosecutions in Dallas County involve allegations by or about children, and Texas grades them severely. These include indecency with a child, continuous sexual abuse of a young child, child grooming, and possession or promotion of child pornography. Several of these carry first-degree ranges, some carry mandatory minimums, and nearly all carry registration consequences. Cases of this kind almost always involve a forensic interview and a Child Protective Services investigation running alongside the criminal case, which is discussed below.

Internet and online sex crimes

Dallas-area agencies, sometimes working with task forces, run undercover operations targeting online conduct, and these cases have grown steadily. Online solicitation of a minor under Penal Code Sec. 33.021 reaches communication with a minor — or with an officer posing as a minor — for a sexual purpose, and much of the “evidence” is a chat log from a sting. Related internet offenses include the electronic transmission of sexual material to a minor. Because so much of an internet case is digital, the reliability of the device forensics, the identity of who was actually at the keyboard, and the constitutional limits on the statute are central defense issues.

Indecent exposure and lower-level offenses

Not every sex-offense allegation is a felony. Indecent exposure is typically a Class B misdemeanor, and public-lewdness allegations sit at the misdemeanor level as well. These cases still carry real stakes — a conviction can affect employment and, with certain repeat conduct, can implicate registration — but they are heard in the County Criminal Courts at Law rather than the felony district courts, and they follow a different path. We defend these matters with the same seriousness, because for the accused the collateral damage of even a misdemeanor sex charge can be substantial.

Offenses tied to a professional relationship

Texas separately criminalizes sexual conduct that exploits a position of trust. Improper relationship between an educator and a student is a second-degree felony that also triggers licensing action by the state’s educator-certification authority, entirely apart from the criminal case. For teachers, coaches, and other certified professionals in Dallas ISD and the surrounding districts, an allegation of this kind puts both liberty and livelihood at risk at the same time, which is why the criminal defense and the licensing exposure have to be handled together.

Failure to register and registry offenses

For a person already on the registry, a paperwork slip can itself become a new felony. Failure to register as a sex offender under Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 62 is charged when a person does not verify, update an address, or otherwise meet a registration duty. Because the grade of a failure-to-register charge tracks the underlying registrable offense, these cases can be serious, and they frequently turn on whether the person actually received proper notice of the specific duty at issue. For a broader look at every category, see our sex crimes practice overview.

How Does Dallas County Handle a Sex Crime Case?

Sex cases in Dallas County move through a specific set of institutions, and knowing the terrain helps demystify a frightening process. From the first police contact to an eventual trial setting, here is how these cases actually unfold in Dallas.

Investigation and arrest

Many Dallas sex cases do not begin with an arrest at all. They begin with an investigation — a detective’s call, a school or CPS report, a complaint made to the Dallas Police Department or a suburban agency such as those in Garland, Irving, Mesquite, Richardson, or the Dallas County portions of Carrollton and Grand Prairie. Sometimes the first sign is a knock on the door or a message asking the accused to “come in and clear things up.” This pre-arrest phase is critical, because what happens in it — whether a statement is given, whether devices are handed over, whether contact is made with the complainant — often shapes the entire case. It is also the phase in which a defense lawyer can do some of the most valuable work, discussed in its own section below.

Booking and magistration at Lew Sterrett

When an arrest does occur, a person taken into custody by Dallas County agencies is booked into the Lew Sterrett Justice Center at 111 W. Commerce Street. Shortly after booking, a magistrate reviews the case, informs the person of the charges and their rights, and sets bail. In sex cases the magistrate will frequently attach conditions of bond — no contact with the complainant, stay-away orders, monitoring — before release. Because bail and those conditions are decided so early, having a lawyer engaged at this point can influence both.

The Frank Crowley Courts Building

Dallas County criminal cases are centralized at the Frank Crowley Courts Building, 133 N. Riverfront Boulevard. Felony sex offenses — sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, indecency with a child, online solicitation, and the like — are prosecuted in the numbered Criminal District Courts housed on the building’s upper floors, while misdemeanor matters such as indecent exposure are handled in the County Criminal Courts at Law on the lower floors. After a case is filed or indicted, it is assigned to a specific court, and every setting — announcements, pretrial hearings, motions, and any trial — happens there. The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes on behalf of the State.

Grand jury and indictment

Felony sex offenses in Texas proceed by indictment, which means a Dallas County grand jury must return a “true bill” before a felony case goes forward to trial. The grand-jury stage is not a formality to be ignored: in some cases, a defense lawyer can submit information for the grand jury’s consideration, and the outcome there can shape or occasionally end a case. Understanding the timeline — from arrest, to filing, to grand jury, to arraignment and pretrial settings — helps an accused person and their family know what to expect at each step. Our overview of what happens after a Texas arrest walks through the sequence in plain language.

Forensic Interviews and the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center

In any Dallas County case involving a child, one institution looms especially large: the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center (DCAC), at 5351 Samuell Boulevard. When a child makes an outcry of abuse, investigators generally do not interview the child at a police station. Instead, a trained forensic interviewer at DCAC conducts a recorded interview while law enforcement and Child Protective Services observe, the goal being to gather information in a neutral, non-leading, and developmentally appropriate way. Interviewers are available around the clock.

That recorded interview frequently becomes the centerpiece of the State’s case. Precisely because it carries so much weight, it is also where a careful defense focuses close attention. The questions that matter include: How did the outcry first arise, and to whom? Was there a custody dispute, a divorce, or another source of pressure in the background? Were the interviewer’s questions genuinely open-ended, or did they suggest answers? Was the child interviewed more than once, and did the account change between tellings? None of this is about attacking a child — it is about testing the reliability of how an allegation was gathered, which is exactly what the presumption of innocence and the State’s burden of proof require.

Running alongside the criminal case, there is almost always a parallel Child Protective Services investigation, which can affect custody, visitation, and living arrangements on its own timeline and under its own, lower burden of proof. Decisions made in the CPS matter can echo into the criminal case and vice versa, so it is important that the two are not handled in isolation. A defense lawyer needs to understand both tracks from the beginning.

Why Does Pre-Arrest and Pre-Charge Representation Matter So Much?

If there is one message this page exists to deliver, it is this: in a sex case, the wisest time to involve a lawyer is often before an arrest — the moment you learn you are under investigation. Sex-offense investigations in Dallas County commonly unfold over weeks or months before any charge is filed, and that window is full of decisions that can help or badly hurt.

Consider what a person under investigation is typically asked to do: give a “voluntary” statement, submit to a polygraph, consent to a search of a phone or computer, or simply “explain their side.” Each of these can feel like a reasonable way to clear things up, and each can instead lock in evidence the State will later use. A lawyer engaged early can decline these requests on the client’s behalf, communicate with investigators directly, control what — if anything — is disclosed, and, in some cases, present exculpatory information that affects whether a charge is filed at all or what it is.

Pre-charge representation also protects against unforced errors. Deleting text messages or social-media content in a panic can create separate tampering or evidence charges and looks like consciousness of guilt. Reaching out to the complainant — even to apologize, even to ask why — can produce recorded statements and new charges. A lawyer’s early guidance heads off these mistakes. If a Dallas detective or a CPS worker has contacted you about an allegation, you do not have to face that conversation alone, and you do not have to wait for handcuffs to get help.

Bond and Bond Conditions in Dallas Sex Cases

Bail in a sex case does two things: it sets the financial terms of release, and it usually attaches a set of conditions the accused must follow while the case is pending. In Dallas County, because these allegations so often center on a particular complainant — frequently a family member, an acquaintance, or a child — the conditions can be extensive.

Common conditions of bond in Dallas sex cases include no contact with the complaining witness; no contact with any child, or with the complainant’s household; staying away from schools, parks, and other places children gather; GPS or other electronic monitoring in some cases; surrender of passports; and, in internet-offense cases, restrictions on internet access or device use. These conditions can reshape daily life — where a person can live, whether they can remain in a shared home, whether they can see their own children — and violating one can trigger a bond revocation and re-arrest.

A defense lawyer plays two roles here. At the outset, counsel can argue for a reasonable bail amount and for conditions that are no broader than necessary. Later, if a condition proves unworkable — for example, a no-contact order that separates a parent from children who are not the complainant — counsel can move the court to modify it. For more on how release conditions operate, see our pages on bail and bond requirements and bond conditions.

One-Sided Allegations and How the Defense Responds

Sex-offense cases have a feature that sets them apart from many other criminal charges: a great many of them rest primarily on an accusation rather than on physical evidence. There may be no DNA, no injuries documented by a SANE examination, no witnesses — only a delayed outcry, a disputed encounter, or two very different accounts of the same event. That does not make the charge less grave, but it does mean the case turns on credibility, context, and the reliability of how the allegation was gathered and preserved.

False and mistaken allegations are a real part of this landscape. They arise from bitter custody and divorce disputes, from misunderstandings, from pressure applied to a child, from motives that have nothing to do with what actually happened. A responsible defense does not assume any particular complainant is lying — it insists that the State prove its case, and it tests that case rigorously: the timeline, the circumstances of the outcry, inconsistencies between accounts, the forensic and digital evidence, and the methods used to collect it. In an internet case, the defense scrutinizes the sting — who initiated contact, what was actually said, whether the statute’s constitutional limits were respected, and whether the person at the keyboard is even who the State says it is.

The presumption of innocence is not a slogan in these cases; it is the mechanism that protects people from being convicted on an untested word. Holding the State to its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the core of what a sex-crimes defense lawyer does.

Sex-Offender Registration Exposure

For most people facing a sex charge, the fear of prison is matched by another fear: ending up on the sex-offender registry. It is a legitimate concern, and it belongs at the center of the defense from the start rather than being treated as an afterthought at sentencing.

Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 62 designates a long list of offenses as “reportable convictions or adjudications” that require registration. For some offenses the duty lasts ten years after the sentence is fully discharged; for others it lasts for life. Registration is public, it dictates where a person can live and work, it imposes ongoing verification duties, and it can follow someone for decades after any prison term ends. It is, for many clients, the single most consequential piece of a sex case.

Because registration attaches to specific offenses and specific dispositions, the charge and the final resolution determine whether it applies at all. A resolution that avoids a registrable offense — where the facts and law allow — can be worth far more than a modest reduction in jail time. And for those already carrying a registration duty, Texas law does provide limited paths to early termination of registration in some cases, an area our firm also handles. Whether registration can be avoided, minimized, or later ended is a strategic question a defense lawyer should be weighing from day one.

Collateral Consequences Beyond Prison

A sex-offense allegation reaches well past the courtroom. Even setting aside prison and registration, the collateral consequences can touch nearly every part of a person’s life, and in Dallas — a large metropolitan county with many licensed professionals — those consequences are wide-ranging.

• Employment and professional licensing. Teachers, nurses, healthcare workers, commercial drivers, and others who hold a license through a Texas agency can face licensing action that proceeds independently of the criminal case, sometimes on a faster track and a lower standard of proof.
• Family and custody. A parallel CPS case, a protective order, or the criminal charge itself can alter custody, visitation, and living arrangements — often before the criminal case is resolved.
• Immigration. For non-citizens, many sex offenses carry severe immigration consequences, including removal, which makes the criminal outcome doubly important.
• Housing and reputation. Registration and public records can affect housing, and the reputational impact of even an allegation can be significant in a person’s community and workplace.

The point is not to catalog fears but to explain why decisions in the criminal case must be made with these ripple effects in view. Choices that look reasonable in isolation — a quick plea, a “voluntary” statement — can widen the collateral damage; a strategy that keeps them in mind can narrow it.

How Does L and L Law Group Defend Dallas Sex Crime Cases?

L and L Law Group, PLLC is a Frisco-based criminal defense firm led by two Co-Founding Partners, Reggie London and Njeri London, and we defend clients throughout Dallas County and the surrounding North Texas counties. Sex cases demand a particular kind of care, and our approach reflects that.

We engage early. Because so much is decided before an arrest, we take pre-arrest and pre-charge cases and work to shape the investigation — communicating with detectives and CPS on the client’s behalf, protecting against unforced errors, and, where possible, affecting whether or what is charged.

We scrutinize the State’s evidence. That means examining how a forensic interview was conducted, how an outcry arose, what a SANE examination did and did not show, how digital and device evidence was collected, and how a sting was run — and holding the prosecution to its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

We keep registration and collateral consequences central. From the first meeting, we weigh whether a given charge or resolution triggers registration and how it affects licensing, family, and immigration, because for many clients those consequences matter as much as the sentence.

We treat clients and families with dignity. An accusation is not a conviction, and the people who come to us are frightened, often ashamed, and presumed innocent under the law. We explain the process in plain language, we do not make promises about outcomes, and we are honest about what a case realistically involves. The initial consultation is free and confidential, we answer the phone 24 hours a day, and we serve Spanish-speaking clients through our bilingual intake and Spanish-language site.

If you or someone you love has been accused of a sex offense in Dallas County — or has simply learned of an investigation — the most useful step is to talk with a lawyer before anything else happens. Call (972) 370-5060 for a free, confidential consultation.