San Jose Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers

San Jose Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers

You built a company. Maybe you raised capital from investors who believed in your vision. Maybe you changed jobs and brought expertise from one tech giant to another. Maybe you advised startups on growth strategies and investor relations. And now someone is asking questions – an SEC subpoena arrived, or FBI agents showed up at your office, or your former employer’s lawyers called about “proprietary information.” You always thought federal court was for actual criminals. How did your startup, your career transition, your advisory work become a federal crime?

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the information about federal criminal defense in San Jose that nobody else will say publicly – because understanding how the Northern District of California became a purpose-built prosecution machine for Silicon Valley is the first step toward protecting yourself. What makes San Jose different isn’t just the presence of tech companies or the occasional high-profile case that makes headlines. It’s the infrastructure that’s been deliberately constructed over years to transform ordinary professional conduct – your pitch decks, your job changes, your investor updates – into federal crimes prosecuted with tools designed for organized crime.

The End of Silicon Valley Leniency

For decades, Silicon Valley operated under an unspoken understanding. Tech executives faced civil consequences when things went wrong – SEC settlements, shareholder lawsuits, regulatory fines. Federal prosecutors in the Northern District filed charges against drug traffickers and violent criminals while white-collar matters resolved quietly through negotiations and disgorgement. The numbers tell the story of that era: federal prosecutors in Northern California filed only 57 white-collar cases in fiscal year 2020, down from 94 the year before. That decline was nearly twice as steep as the drop in the Southern District of New York, which covers Wall Street. Silicon Valley seemed to exist in a protective bubble where business failures stayed civil matters.

Heres the thing most tech professionals dont understand about that history. The leniency wasnt a policy decision or a philosophical commitment to treating business conduct differently from street crime. It was a resource allocation choice made when prosecutors had other priorities and limited infrastructure for complex corporate cases. When your investigating drug cartels and terrorism networks and violent gangs, startup fraud gets pushed to the back of the line. The SEC handles it civilly. Shareholders sue. Everyone moves on. That calculus created a generation of tech professionals who genuinely believed federal prosecution was something that happened to other people in other industries doing obviously criminal things.

That era ended. It didnt end gradually through policy discussions or regulatory evolution. It ended in a San Jose courtroom when Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison for defrauding Theranos investors. The prosecutors who secured that sentence wernt just punishing one defendant – they were announcing that the rules had fundamentaly changed for everyone in Silicon Valley. Your operating in a jurisdiction that watched the old leniency produce $700 million in investor losses and decided to build something completley different.

The infrastructure that replaced the old leniency wasnt assembled overnight. Prosecutors studied the Theranos investigation and identified why it took years to build that case. They examined what tools were missing and what resources were insufficant. And then they built a prosecution ecosystem specificaly designed to process Silicon Valley cases faster and more effectivley – a Corporate Fraud Strike Force, parallel prosecution coordination with the SEC, a Disruptive Technology Strike Force for trade secrets. The district that enabled tech wealth creation built the most sophisticated tools for prosecuting tech wealth creators.

The Holmes Precedent: 11 Years Changed Everything

Maybe youve heard that Silicon Valley executives usually face civil penalties, not prison. That used to be true. Then Elizabeth Holmes got eleven years – 135 months in federal prison for wire fraud and conspiracy. A federal jury convicted her on four counts. The appeals court upheld the conviction in 2025. She was ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to investors including Rupert Murdoch, the DeVos family, and the Waltons. The startup founder who graced magazine covers and received glowing profiles is serving time in a federal prison camp.

OK so heres were the Holmes case becomes directly relevant to your situation, whatever your situation is. The prosecutors who secured that sentence didnt just want to punish one defendant. They explicitly stated in there sentencing memorandum that the sentence was meant to “deter future startup fraud schemes” and “rebuild the trust investors must have when funding innovators.” Read that again. They wernt prosecuting a criminal who happened to work in tech. They were using the sentencing phase to send a message to every founder, every executive, every advisor in Silicon Valley about what happens now when startup communications turn out to be inaccurate.

The Holmes precedent established that startup fraud means real prison time – measured in years, not months. Before Holmes, defendants in similar cases could point to civil resolutions and probationary sentences in comparable matters. After Holmes, prosecutors point to eleven years as the benchmark for what investor fraud in the tech industry should produce. The deterrence language in that sentencing memorandum gets cited in every startup fraud prosecution now. Your potential sentence isnt determined just by sentencing guidelines – its shaped by prosecutors who explicitly want to make examples of Silicon Valley defendants.

Think about what this means for conduct that falls far short of Theranos-level fraud. The pitch deck where you projected revenue growth based on optimistic assumptions about market adoption. The investor update where you described progress without emphasizing setbacks. The fundraising materials where you highlighted potential without dwelling on risks. All of that conduct gets analyzed now through the lens of prosecutors who have an eleven-year precedent to cite and deterrence language that explicitly targets the startup ecosystem. The same conduct that would have settled civilly ten years ago gets evaluated against Holmes in 2025.

And heres the kicker that keeps defense attorneys awake at night. Holmes’s conviction was upheld on appeal in February 2025. The Ninth Circuit rejected every argument her attorneys raised. The precedent is locked in, tested at every level, affirmed by appeals courts. Its not a one-off verdict from a jury that got emotional – its a complete prosecution template that survived appellate review and now sits waiting to be applied to the next defendant who matches the pattern. That next defendant might be you.

Organized Crime Tactics for White-Collar Targets

The Corporate Fraud Strike Force operating in the Northern District of California dosent investigate startup fraud like traditional white-collar crime. They investigate it like organized crime. This isnt metaphor or exageration – the Strike Force was specifically designed to import the investigation tools that prosecutors use against drug cartels and the mob into corporate fraud cases. The leadership team includes the former chief of the districts Organized Crime Strike Force. They brought the methodology with them.

Heres what that means in practice for someone in your position. Wiretaps on your phone before you know your a target. Search warrants executed at dawn while your familys still asleep. Criminal complaints filed while your still thinking this is a civil dispute. The same aggressive investigation tactics that the FBI uses against cartel leaders and mob bosses – deployed against tech founders who thought they were building companies. Your optimistic pitch deck, analyzed through the lens of prosecutors who’ve perfected these tools across thousands of organized crime investigations. Your investor communications, potentialy intercepted before you even knew anyone was listening.

The Strike Force uses what prosecutors call “operational efficiency” – offering there best plea deal at the outset with a firm deadline to accept. This is pressure methodology imported directly from drug prosecutions where defendants face overwhelming evidence and limited options. You dont get the traditional white-collar negotiation timeline where attorneys exchange letters for months and gradually narrow issues. You get an ultimatum designed to secure a guilty plea before you’ve even processed what’s happening. The tactics that break drug defendants in days are now being deployed against startup executives.

Think about the information asymetry that defines your situation right now. If there investigating you, they may have been listening to your calls for months. They may have executed search warrants at your vendors and business partners without you knowing. They may have interviewed your former employees, your investors, your accountants – building a case file while you went about your business assuming this was all a civil matter. The organized crime methodology means investigation happens in secret, evidence accumulates invisably, and charges arrive after prosecutors have already built there case. You dont get to participate in that process. You get to respond to it after its done.

The uncomfortable truth about Strike Force tactics is that there designed to produce guilty pleas, not trials. When your facing wiretap evidence of statements you made before you knew you were being recorded, when your facing document production from dawn raids before you had a chance to review what was seized, when your facing a plea deadline measured in weeks rather than months – the system is engineered to make trial feel impossible. Prosecutors who built there careers convicting mob bosses know exactly how to create that pressure.

When Your SEC Response Becomes Criminal Evidence

The Securities and Exchange Commission cant send you to prison. They can sue you civilly, seek monetary penalties, and bar you from the securities industry forever. But they cant file criminal charges. This limitation created what used to be a managable separation – you cooperate with the SEC, you resolve there concerns, you pay fines if neccesary, and you move on with your career damaged but not destroyed. That separation has collapsed in the Northern District of California.

OK so heres the dangerous reality that your securities attorney might not explain clearly. The SEC and DOJ now run parallel investigations where civil and criminal matters proceed simultaneously against the same targets. Your cooperation with the SEC – the documents you produce, the testimony you give, the explanations you provide – becomes part of the file that DOJ prosecutors use to build criminal charges. The civil subpoena you responded to comprehensivly because your attorney said cooperation reduces penalties? Those documents are sitting in a DOJ office right now being analyzed for criminal liability.

The parallel prosecution structure creates an impossible dilemma that defense attorneys hate explaining. If you refuse to cooperate with the SEC, you face civil penalties and enforcement action that can destroy your career. If you cooperate fully, you create the evidence file that DOJ uses to prosecute you criminally. There is no safe path. Every choice involves risk. And the prosecutors who designed this system understand exactley how the dilemma works – they built it specificaly to eliminate the comfortable middle ground where executives could manage civil exposure without criminal risk.

Heres the kicker about parallel prosecutions that should terrify anyone who thinks there handling matters responsably. The SEC issues what’s called a Form 1662 that warns you that information you provide may be used in enforcement proceedings. But “enforcement proceedings” sounds like more civil matters, more fines, more regulatory consequences. It dosent sound like federal prison. Defense attorneys who havent handled parallel prosecutions in the Northern District sometimes miss how completely the civil-criminal boundary has dissolved. Your civil case IS your criminal case now. There the same investigation wearing different hats.

Think about how this applies to conduct that happened before you understood any of this. The SEC inquiry you treated as a routine regulatory matter. The document production you handled internally without criminal defense counsel. The voluntary interview where you thought transparency would resolve concerns. Every piece of that civil cooperation is now discoverable in a criminal investigation. The prosecutors have what you gave the SEC. They have what you said to the SEC. And there using the Strike Force methodology to analyze all of it.

The National Security Trap: Trade Secrets as Espionage

The Disruptive Technology Strike Force isnt a metaphor or marketing term. Its an actual interagency operation run jointly by the Departments of Justice and Commerce, designed to prevent “critical technology from being acquired by authoritarian regimes and hostile nation-states.” That sounds like it targets foreign spies and state-sponsored hackers. It targets job changes in Silicon Valley.

Heres were this gets uncomfortable for anyone whos changed jobs between tech companies or might do so in the future. A former Google engineer named Linwei Ding was charged with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets for allegedly uploading over 1,000 files related to AI technology. The prosecution theory characterized his job change as stealing technology on behalf of foreign interests. A former Apple engineer was charged with theft of trade secrets for allegedly accessing confidential information related to autonomous vehicle technology before leaving for a competitor. The job transitions that Silicon Valley treats as normal career progression are being characterized as economic espionage when prosecutors decide thats how they want to frame the case.

Trade secrets prosecutions in the Northern District arent just civil IP disputes that escalated – there national security matters prosecuted with national security urgency. The Disruptive Technology Strike Force brings the same intensity to your job change investigation that counterintelligence agencies bring to actual espionage cases. The documents you accessed before leaving your employer, the files you saved to personal storage, the information you carried in your head about how systems work – all of it gets analyzed through a framework designed to protect America from hostile foreign powers. Even if your just changing jobs for better compensation and you’ve never had contact with any foreign entity, the prosecution infrastructure treats your conduct like a national security threat.

Think about how this applies to routine career moves that happen thousands of times a year in Silicon Valley. You work at a major tech company for years. You access confidential information as part of your job – thats what the job requires. You leave for a competitor or to start something new. You bring expertise and knowledge that you developed over your career. In the old world, if your former employer objected, there would be a civil lawsuit about non-compete agreements and confidentiality. In the new world, the DOJ receives a referral, the Disruptive Technology Strike Force opens an investigation, and your career move becomes a federal criminal case with espionage overtones.

The prosecution of trade secrets cases has increased dramaticaly in the Northern District specifically because of Silicon Valley’s concentration of valuable intellectual property. Researchers have documented that 47 individuals were charged nationwide with theft of trade secrets between 2019 and 2022, with the Northern District consistently among the top jurisdictions. The district that houses the IP is becoming the district that prosecutes its movement with criminal charges.

Why Your Palo Alto Attorney Might Not Understand

Your Silicon Valley attorney handles securities matters competantly, advises on regulatory compliance, manages corporate transactions, and might even handle civil litigation when things go sideways. But heres the uncomfortable truth that most local attorneys wont tell you becuase there livelihood depends on you believing otherwise: handling SEC matters and civil disputes is not the same as handling Strike Force prosecutions. Not even close.

Strike Force prosecutors are specialists who chose this career path specificaly. They dont rotate through different practice areas like typical federal prosecutors building general experience. They prosecute corporate fraud exclusivly using organized crime methodology. Thats what they do every day, thats all they do, and theyve been doing it since the Strike Force launched in 2019. They understand pitch deck analysis, parallel prosecution coordination, wiretap evidence, and plea pressure tactics at a level that generalist attorneys – even very good ones with excellent reputations in civil securities work – simply dont match.

Todd Spodek has handled federal cases in jurisdictions across America, including districts with Strike Force operations and parallel prosecution infrastructure similar to what the Northern District has built. The pattern he sees over and over with clients who come to him after initial representation failed: local counsel discovers too late that there facing prosecutors with Strike Force specialization who have seen every defense strategy, every motion approach, every negotiation tactic that worked in civil matters or traditional white-collar cases. The defense strategies that work against the SEC dont translate to DOJ Strike Force prosecutions with fundamentaly different dynamics.

Clients come to Spodek Law Group after there Palo Alto attorney discovered the investigation had been running for months before anyone knew. After there local counsel realized the wiretaps were already in place when they thought this was still a civil dispute. After there trusted advisor admitted they had never actualy defended a Strike Force prosecution and didnt understand the methodology or the pressure tactics or the organized crime toolkit being deployed against tech professionals. By then, critical opportunities for intervention have often passed becuase the attorneys initial responses were calibrated for a different kind of proceeding.

The question isnt whether your Silicon Valley attorney is competant at practicing law in civil matters or even traditional federal cases. The question is whether there competant in THIS specific arena – where prosecutors use wiretaps and dawn raids imported from organized crime investigations, where the Holmes precedent means eleven years is the benchmark for startup fraud, where parallel prosecutions turn SEC cooperation into criminal evidence, and where trade secrets matters become national security cases prosecuted with espionage intensity.

The 72-Hour Window

The moment you learn about a federal investigation is the moment your defense begins – or the moment you start making mistakes that cant be undone and will be used against you at trial. The actions you take in the first 72 hours will shape everything that follows, from investigation through potential indictment through trial through sentencing.

Do not talk to federal agents without counsel present under any circumstances. This isnt about having something to hide or looking guilty – its about protecting yourself from making statements that become crimes in themselves. Under 18 USC 1001, making a false statement to federal agents is a separate federal crime carrying up to 5 years in prison – even if you didnt commit the underlying offense there investigating and even if you genuinly believed you were telling the truth when you spoke. The agents who show up at your office or your home are trained specifically to create opportunities for you to make statements that become federal crimes independent of anything else.

Do not destroy documents or alter records of any kind. Do not delete emails or text messages. Do not remove files from cloud storage or personal devices. Every one of these actions is a separate federal crime – obstruction of justice – that turns a survivable investigation into an unsurvivable prosecution. Obstruction charges frequently carry longer sentences than the underlying conduct being investigated. Prosecutors love obstruction charges because there easy to prove once you’ve taken any action with your documents, and they eliminate sympathy at sentencing.

Do not assume your cooperation with the SEC protected you or that civil resolution means criminal exposure is over. The parallel prosecution infrastructure means civil and criminal matters run simultaneously. The file you built cooperating with the SEC is sitting with DOJ prosecutors right now. Your civil resolution may have actually accelerated their criminal timeline by completing the evidence gathering phase.

Todd always tells clients the same thing about Silicon Valley cases, and its worth hearing clearly: the prosecution ecosystem was built specifically for you. Wiretaps approved, parallel investigations running, Strike Force resources assigned, Holmes precedent ready to cite. The question isnt whether you can prevent investigation – the investigation may have been running for months or years. Its whether you can shape the outcome of an investigation thats already in progress and may be closer to indictment than you realize.

Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. The Northern District of California didnt become a tech prosecution destination by accident – they built it deliberately with organized crime tactics, parallel prosecution coordination, and the Holmes precedent as their benchmark. Your Palo Alto attorney may never have faced prosecutors with this level of Strike Force specialization. The window for effective defense intervention is measured in hours, not days or weeks.