Cooperation is the most consequential decision available in the federal criminal system. It is also the decision most often made without adequate information. The federal sentencing guidelines, the statutory framework governing federal prosecution, and…
The SEC investigation and the criminal investigation are not the same proceeding. They are frequently the same facts, viewed through different statutory frameworks by different agencies that share information freely. Securities fraud occupies a…
The safety valve exists because Congress eventually acknowledged what judges had been saying for years: that mandatory minimums, applied without exception, produced sentences that the facts of specific cases did not warrant. The safety…
The letter has already been sent; what happens next is the only question that matters. A target letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not a courtesy. It is a notification, issued at…
RICO is not a charge about organized crime, though it was designed for organized crime. It is a charge about patterns, and patterns are everywhere. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C.…
The Paycheck Protection Program distributed more than eight hundred billion dollars in relief funds between 2020 and 2021. The investigation of those distributions will occupy federal prosecutors for the remainder of this decade. The…
Obstruction charges are often the most serious charges in a federal indictment that did not begin as an obstruction investigation. Federal obstruction of justice statutes address a wide range of conduct designed to impede,…
The rights are present. The warnings are not. The distinction between those two facts is the one that matters. A non-custodial FBI interview is one that occurs in circumstances where the subject is legally…
Service of a federal grand jury subpoena is not the beginning of your legal exposure. It is the moment you become aware of it. The grand jury investigation that produced the subpoena has been…
The case is built before you are informed of it. The indicators are present earlier than people expect. Federal criminal investigations are designed to reach a point of sufficient evidentiary development before the subject…