A loan dispute is not a federal crime.
Bank fraud carries some of the heaviest federal exposure on the books - but the government still has to prove you intended to deceive a bank. Intent is where these cases are won.
Netflix told the story. The defense was ours.
When Shonda Rhimes built Inventing Anna, the defense at its center was Todd Spodek’s - argued for the so-called fake heiress in a Manhattan courtroom long before Arian Moayed of Succession played him on screen. What 320 million hours of viewers watched is the method every client of this firm gets, in every federal district.
The record, dated and sourced.
How your case unfolds.
THE FULL PROCESS →Risk-free, in person or by phone. Ask anything, for as long as it takes. Strategy starts the same day.
Subpoenas to your bank, a referral in the file - we reach prosecutors before the charging memo is final, and fight for release the week any indictment lands.
Suppress the records seized too broadly, attack the loss and the intent element, negotiate from strength - we are unafraid of a jury reading loan files.
Bank fraud prosecutions turn documents into accusations: an inflated application, a disputed signature, a loan that went bad. The government must prove a knowing scheme to defraud a financial institution - not sloppy paperwork, not a business that failed. We reconstruct the record, challenge the loss theory, and put intent on trial.
A paper case, built by subpoena.
Bank fraud arrives as a wall of records: account statements, wire logs, loan files, SARs your bank filed years ago. Grand jury subpoenas run quietly to every institution you touched before anyone calls you. When the interview request finally comes, the government already believes it knows the answers - which is exactly why you do not give them unrepresented.
A 30-year headline, a loss-table reality.
Section 1344 carries thirty years per count, but the sentence actually comes off the §2B1.1 loss table - and loss is an argument, not a fact. Intended versus actual, credits for collateral and repayment, gross-receipts enhancements: every rung moves the range by years. We fight the table before we ever talk about the cap.
What acquittals are made of.
The government must prove a scheme aimed at a bank and intent to defraud it - not a loan that soured or a statement an underwriter waved through. Materiality, reliance, and authorization are real defenses; so is the paper itself, which often shows the bank knew. We put the lender’s own underwriting on trial.
Section 1344, by the numbers.
Bank fraud carries thirty years and a $1 million statutory fine per count - the enhanced ceiling Congress attached to anything touching a federally insured institution. The same conduct usually draws companion counts: false statements to a lender under §1014, wire fraud for the emails, aggravated identity theft where names were borrowed. The Supreme Court’s Loughrin and Shaw decisions settled that the scheme need only target the bank, not succeed - but intent to defraud the institution itself remains the element the government most often overstates.
Before you talk to the bank again.
By the time a federal case exists, the bank’s fraud department has referred you, and every call to “straighten things out” is being logged for the file. Route all contact through counsel, preserve your records before accounts get frozen, and build the dated inventory of what actually happened - repayments included. Restitution arranged early has ended §1344 referrals before charging more than once.
Know who is on the other side.
The first 72 hours decide the next 72 weeks.
No interviews, no consents, no explaining, no deleting. The words said in hour zero are the exhibits at trial. Write down what was asked and by whom - then stop.
Privilege attaches, facts get mapped while memory is fresh, documents get preserved the right way, and nobody in your orbit talks to agents unrepresented again.
We contact the government as your counsel: target, subject, or witness gets confirmed, deadlines get calendared, and the defense - not the investigation - sets the tempo.
Todd A. Spodek is a second-generation trial lawyer whose defense of Anna Delvey became Netflix's Inventing Anna. He appears on Fox News and CNN as a legal analyst, authored "My Advice to Diddy" in The Spectator, and is quoted by the Associated Press when the biggest federal cases break. The record behind the profile: a complete acquittal in a $26M money-laundering trial, RICO charges carrying a 10-year minimum dismissed, and 6 months on a $12M Ponzi case.
Why this firm.
Five decades of federal courtrooms. Whatever the government has charged, this firm has defended it before.
No allegiance to U.S. Attorneys, agents, or agencies. The client is the only constituency.
Every district in the country, one client portal - documents, invoices, counsel, in real time.
We decline more federal matters than we accept - and every accepted case gets the whole bench.
See who fights for you before you ever call.
Who we are, how we work, and why clients nationwide trust us with their future - in under a minute.
On the record, on the wire.
Get ahead of the case.
Answered within 24 hours, guaranteed. Some stories are better told out loud -
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