Robbery turns federal the moment commerce moves.
The Hobbs Act converts robbery and extortion into twenty-year federal counts on the thinnest interstate hook the government can plead. The hook is also the weakness.
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.
Task-force attention and cell-site maps - counsel engages before identification procedures repeat themselves into certainty.
Challenge the ID, litigate the §924(c) stack, test the commerce hook - and when trial is the advantage, we try the government’s stills against your alibi.
Section 1951 requires robbery or extortion plus an effect on interstate commerce - and prosecutors read “effect” as broadly as language allows. But every element must still be proved beyond a reasonable doubt: the taking, the fear, the nexus. Each one can be attacked, and the attack starts with why this case is in federal court at all.
The commerce hook.
Depletion-of-assets theories let the government federalize corner-store disputes. When the alleged victim is an individual rather than a business, when the property never crossed a state line, when the “effect” is speculative - the nexus is a jury question, and juries can be shown how thin it is.
The 924(c) stack.
Hobbs Act counts rarely travel alone: prosecutors attach § 924(c) firearm counts that stack consecutive mandatory minimums on top. The Supreme Court has been dismantling the predicates - attempted Hobbs Act robbery is no longer a crime of violence. Beat the predicate and the stack falls with it.
Extortion or hard bargaining.
Fear of economic loss is an element, not an atmosphere. Litigation threats, aggressive negotiation, labor pressure - the line between lawful leverage and extortion is exactly where these prosecutions blur. We try that line in front of the jury, because the government would rather you plead than define it.
Robbery, extortion, and the commerce clause.
The Hobbs Act carries twenty years per count and needs only a “de minimis” effect on commerce - a robbed bodega’s out-of-state inventory suffices. Its real weight is the §924(c) companion: brandishing adds seven consecutive years, a second count twenty-five. Taylor held attempted Hobbs robbery is not a crime of violence - a live lever that has unwound §924(c) counts nationwide. Extortion theories reach labor disputes and debt collection, where the “wrongful use” element does honest work.
If a task force has your name.
Alibi evidence ages fastest: preserve location data, receipts, and witnesses this week, not at arraignment. Do not discuss the incident on any jail line - every call is recorded and transcribed. Lineup and photo-array procedures are challengeable; tell counsel exactly how any identification of you happened, because suggestive procedures get suppressed.
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.
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Get ahead of the case.
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