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Cyrus S. Tabibnia, founder and principal of the Tabibnia Law Firm, handles misdemeanor and felony matters at the Burbank Courthouse and throughout Los Angeles County. If you were arrested by Burbank Police, you were most likely booked at the city jail on North 3rd Street, and your case is now sitting with one of two different prosecuting agencies. Which one it is changes almost everything about how your defense should start. Call us before charges are filed if you can. That window is short, and it is where a criminal defense attorney in Burbank can do some of the most useful work of the entire case.
WHO IS ACTUALLY PROSECUTING YOUR BURBANK CASE
Burbank is one of a small number of cities in Los Angeles County with its own criminal prosecutor. That splits your case down one of two paths.
- Misdemeanors go to the Burbank City Attorney’s Office. Its Prosecution Unit files state misdemeanors committed in the city, including DUI, domestic violence, shoplifting, and solicitation, along with violations of the Burbank municipal code. Most cities in the county do not have this. Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, for example, send everything to the District Attorney.
- Felonies go to the Los Angeles County District Attorney. Deputy District Attorneys review and file Burbank felonies out of the Glendale branch office, which is why a Burbank felony often carries a Glendale case number even though the hearings happen in Burbank.
Both kinds of cases are heard at the Burbank Courthouse at 300 East Olive Avenue. It is a small building with a handful of criminal departments, and felony matters that are set for trial may be transferred to a larger courthouse.
This matters for a practical reason. Pre-filing advocacy means talking to whichever office is reviewing your report, and those two offices have different filing standards, different diversion practices, and different people. An attorney who does not know which door to knock on loses the window entirely.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE FIRST DAYS AFTER A BURBANK ARREST
Most people arrested by Burbank Police are booked at the Burbank City Jail on North 3rd Street. From there the case goes one of two ways. You may be released with a citation and a date to appear, or you may be held until you post bail or see a judge.
Either way, no charge exists yet. The police write a report and submit it for filing consideration, and a prosecutor decides whether to file, what to file, and at what level. That decision has not been made when most people first call us, and that is the point. A misdemeanor can be talked down to an infraction or declined outright. A felony submission can be filed as a misdemeanor instead. Once the complaint is filed, everything gets harder.
Do not talk to investigators before you have counsel. Politely decline and call.
BURBANK DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ATTORNEY
Domestic violence cases in Burbank are usually filed by the City Attorney as misdemeanors under Penal Code 243(e)(1), or by the District Attorney as felonies under Penal Code 273.5 when there is a visible injury.
These cases move fast and they carry consequences that arrive before any conviction. At arraignment, the court will typically issue a criminal protective order that can remove you from your own home and restrict contact with your children. A conviction generally carries a 52-week batterer’s intervention program, probation, and a firearms prohibition. For non-citizens, a domestic violence conviction is among the more dangerous outcomes in California criminal law.
The evidence in these cases is often thinner than it first appears. Many rest on one statement taken in the first minutes after officers arrive, sometimes from someone who now wants the case dropped and cannot make that happen because the decision belongs to the prosecutor. Injuries can be defensive. Accounts change. Recorded 911 calls and body camera footage frequently contradict the report. All of that is workable.
BURBANK DUI ATTORNEY
DUI cases arising in Burbank are prosecuted by the City Attorney’s Office as misdemeanors, unless there is an injury or a qualifying prior, in which case the District Attorney files them as felonies.
There is a deadline here that catches people. You have ten days from the date of arrest to request a hearing with the DMV. This is a separate administrative proceeding from your criminal case, and it governs your license. Miss the ten days and the suspension takes effect regardless of what happens in court. We handle the DMV side alongside the criminal case.
On the criminal side, the defenses tend to be technical. Whether the officer had legal cause for the stop. Whether field sobriety tests were administered as designed. Whether the breath instrument was calibrated and maintained on schedule. Whether a blood draw followed proper procedure and chain of custody. Whether rising blood alcohol means your level at the time of driving was lower than at the time of testing.
BURBANK DRUG CRIME ATTORNEY
California drug law has shifted substantially, and a lot of the fear people bring to a first consultation is based on how these cases worked fifteen years ago.
Simple possession for personal use under Health and Safety Code 11350 and 11377 is now a misdemeanor for most defendants following Proposition 47. Possession for sale, transportation for sale, and manufacturing remain felonies, and the distinction usually turns on circumstantial evidence: quantity, packaging, scales, cash, and text messages. Challenging the inference of intent to sell is often the whole case.
Diversion is frequently available. Penal Code 1000 allows eligible defendants charged with simple possession to complete a program and have the charge dismissed without a conviction. Military diversion and mental health diversion may apply in other situations. Getting into the right program, early, is often a better result than any trial outcome.
If the drugs were found during a vehicle or home search, the first question is always whether that search was lawful. A successful motion to suppress under Penal Code 1538.5 usually ends the case.
BURBANK THEFT CRIME ATTORNEY
California theft law turns on a single dollar figure. Petty theft under Penal Code 484 covers property valued at $950 or less and is a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in county jail. Grand theft under Penal Code 487 covers property valued above $950 and can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony, with a maximum of three years.
Proposition 47 pulled most theft below $950 down to misdemeanor status, including shoplifting, which is now charged under Penal Code 459.5. If you have an older felony theft conviction on your record, it may be eligible for reduction.
Related charges each have their own elements and their own weak points. Burglary under Penal Code 459 requires intent to steal at the moment of entry, which is a genuinely difficult thing for a prosecutor to prove. Robbery under Penal Code 211 requires force or fear, and the line between a theft and a robbery is often a brief physical contact that a witness describes one way and video shows another. Receiving stolen property requires knowledge that the property was stolen.
Many first-time theft cases in Burbank resolve through diversion, a civil compromise, or a reduction, particularly where restitution is paid early.
BURBANK SEX CRIME ATTORNEY
Sex offense allegations carry consequences that begin well before trial, including damage to your reputation and employment that no acquittal fully undoes. They are also charged aggressively and often rest on a single account with no corroborating physical evidence.
One point worth correcting, because it causes unnecessary panic: California no longer imposes lifetime sex offender registration on everyone convicted of a registrable offense. Since 2021, the state uses a tiered system with 10-year, 20-year, and lifetime tiers depending on the offense and the defendant’s history. Which tier applies is frequently negotiable as part of a resolution, and it is one of the most important things to get right.
Offenses we defend include:
- Sexual battery, Penal Code 243.4
- Rape, including date rape and spousal rape, Penal Code 261
- Statutory rape, Penal Code 261.5
- Lewd acts with a child, Penal Code 288
- Forcible oral copulation, Penal Code 287
- Child pornography offenses, Penal Code 311
- Human trafficking, Penal Code 236.1
- Indecent exposure, Penal Code 314
- Lewd conduct in public, Penal Code 647(a)
- Solicitation and prostitution, Penal Code 647(b)
- Pimping and pandering, Penal Code 266h and 266i
- Failure to register, Penal Code 290
BURBANK WHITE COLLAR CRIME ATTORNEY
White collar cases in Burbank can be filed by the City Attorney, the District Attorney, or federal prosecutors, and sometimes the same conduct draws interest from more than one. They also tend to be investigated for months before anyone is arrested, which is unusual in criminal law and is an opportunity. If you have received a target letter, a grand jury subpoena, or a call from an investigator, the case is still being shaped.
Embezzlement, Penal Code 503, requires the prosecution to prove a relationship of trust, that you took property entrusted to you through that relationship, and that you intended to deprive the owner of it. Disputes over authorization, accounting errors, and genuine misunderstandings about who was permitted to spend what are common defenses, and intent is where most of these cases are actually won.
Forgery, Penal Code 470, requires intent to defraud. Signing another person’s name is not forgery by itself. If the intent to defraud cannot be proven, the charge does not stand, even where the signature is undisputed.
Extortion, Penal Code 518, requires that property be obtained through the wrongful use of force or fear, with consent given because of that threat. A threat alone is not extortion. Threatening to report someone to the police is lawful; it becomes criminal only when tied to a demand for property. That distinction decides a lot of these cases.
Fraud charges, money laundering, tax offenses, and computer crimes follow similar logic. The government has to prove a state of mind, and documents rarely speak for themselves.
BURBANK CHILD ENDANGERMENT ATTORNEY
Penal Code 273a makes it a crime to willfully place a child in a situation where their health or safety is endangered. It does not require that the child was actually hurt, which is what separates it from child abuse and what makes it so easy to charge.
The pivotal question is usually your mental state. Prosecutors must show either willful conduct or criminal negligence, meaning behavior a reasonable person would recognize as a disregard for a child’s safety. Ordinary parenting decisions that turned out badly, accidents, and disagreements about supervision are not the same thing as criminal negligence, though they are sometimes charged as if they were.
These cases often arrive attached to something else, a DUI with a child in the car or a domestic violence call at a home with children present. They also tend to trigger a parallel Department of Children and Family Services investigation, which runs on its own track with its own consequences for custody. Both need to be handled together.
BURBANK EXPUNGEMENT ATTORNEY
If you completed probation on a Burbank conviction, you may be eligible for relief under Penal Code 1203.4. The court withdraws the plea or verdict and dismisses the case, and for most private employment purposes you can then answer that you have not been convicted.
It is worth being clear about what expungement does and does not do. It does not seal the record from law enforcement, restore firearm rights, or remove a sex offender registration requirement. It does not erase a DUI for purposes of counting priors. What it does is remove the conviction from the position where most background checks find it, which for most people is the thing that matters.
Related relief may also be available: reducing a felony to a misdemeanor under Penal Code 17(b), early termination of probation, and record sealing after an arrest that never led to conviction. Which of these fits depends on the specifics, and they are often pursued together.
WHY LOCAL EXPERIENCE MATTERS IN BURBANK
Burbank is a small court. There are only a few criminal departments, one city prosecutor’s office, and a limited group of judicial officers. The same people appear again and again. Knowing how a particular prosecutor evaluates a diversion request, or which judge will actually entertain a motion, is not a small advantage in a building that size.
Cyrus S. Tabibnia has been licensed in California since 2005 and has spent his career in Los Angeles County criminal courts. He is a graduate of Loyola Law School. You work with him directly rather than being handed to an associate, and he speaks English, Persian, and Spanish.
The firm handles investigation, motion practice, negotiation, and trial, and takes cases at every stage, including before charges have been filed.
CONTACT A BURBANK CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY
Call for a consultation. We will go through what happened, tell you which office is likely reviewing your case, explain what you are realistically facing, and lay out what happens next.
