Legalities in (True Crime) Memoir Writing

[danielmc]

Hello all. I know this has been touched on other threads, the do's and dont's of naming names etc, but what if the people and events I am writing about are real but not in the public eye?

My story (think Child Called it meets Bringing Down The House meets Fight Club and Choke) centres around the last two years of my life (and expores the previous 28 yrs and the affect they had in making me into who i was), the usual sex, drugs and rock and roll, and an 'illegal scam' (shall we call it) that I was associated with, yet there has been no legal involvement from the authorities and is now not likely to be. It also details at least another dozen or so frauds and scams that i know about, and that anybody reading the novel could easily replicate.

What is the legal position on this? Would i face arrest on publication? Would a publisher baulk at such a book? There have been countless number of books written by gangsters and drug smugglers and professional hitmen, and I can't recall any of them being arrested, post-publication, for 'crimes' they detailed in a memoir.
Am I better off changing the title, dropping the word Memoir, changing everyones name, and submitting it as fiction, though it is %100 true?

Thanks in advance!

[Jaws]

What you need to do is consult an attorney in your jurisdiction who both handles defamation/privacy/right of publicity claims and is personally familiar with (or the partner of another lawyer who is personally familiar with) the white-collar crime law in your jurisdiction. It is possible that the statutes of limitation have all run on the purported offenses, meaning that all you would have to worry about is the defamation/privacy/right of publicity prong. It is also possible, however, that there might be a criminal-law barrier, such as grand-jury secrecy.

Whatever you do, do not post a more-detailed description online—at least, not until you've gotten the kind of counsel described above.