Criminal Defense

Aggressive defense at every stage — arraignment, bail argument, hearings, motions, and trial — for charges from petty misdemeanors to serious felonies. Having prosecuted close to 200 cases in Brooklyn’s busiest trial bureau, Mr. Syed knows how the prosecution builds its case, and uses that insight to take it apart.

• Arraignment & bail advocacy
• Suppression hearings
• Trial defense from a former prosecutor

A DWI conviction threatens your license, your insurance, your employment, and in some cases your liberty. We challenge the basis for the stop, field sobriety and chemical testing procedures, and the handling of the evidence — pursuing dismissals, reductions, and hardship privileges that keep your life running.

• Stop & probable-cause challenges
• Breath/blood test litigation
• License & hardship privileges

From simple possession to distribution allegations, drug cases rise or fall on the search and seizure. We scrutinize the stop, the warrant, the field tests, and the laboratory evidence, and litigate suppression aggressively — because evidence obtained unlawfully cannot be used against you.

• Search & seizure suppression
• Lab evidence challenges
• Diversion & treatment alternatives

Assault and other violent-crime allegations carry the heaviest stakes and the most emotionally charged prosecutions. We spend the countless hours the case demands — reviewing video, medical records, and witness statements, investigating self-defense and misidentification — in pursuit of a not-guilty verdict.

• Self-defense & justification
• Misidentification investigation
• Video and forensic review

New York law (CPL 160.59) allows up to two eligible convictions — including one non-violent felony — to be sealed after ten years without new convictions. We evaluate your eligibility, assemble the application, and advocate for the sealing that lets a decades-old mistake stop defining your employment, housing, and future.

• CPL 160.59 eligibility review
• Application preparation
• Advocacy at sealing hearings