I have been falsely accused of mis-use of a gun on 3 different occassions. The first one resulted in charges being filed (misdemeanor, down from the felonies being considered) and the other two, a simple phone call from the officers involved resulted in no action.
On the first accusation, it took over $10,000 and 6 months of my time, including booking and various court appearances before the DA backed down and dropped the charges.
During the process, I also acquired state licensed professional training (including earning the SAME shooting badges as LEOs) which gave me a bit of "legitimacy" with LEO.
What I can add to the "get a good lawyer" is to make sure the attorney you hire understands that not only are you innocent, but that the charges are based on the DA attempting to "put you under his thumb" ... if you have no other runins with law enforcement, there really is no reason for them to take one person's word over yours, but many DAs want more "wins" to pad their election figures.
My attorney commented that it was much harder to defend someone that was innocent than someone that was guilty. I refused all plea offers and insisted on CLEARING my good name! Not just that the charges were dropped, but that the judge dismissed the charges with predjudice (the DA tried to "not go forward at this time".) Of course, the local newspaper didn't want to hear from me about that, not like how eager they were to be in court to see me charged and report it in the paper.
