Pandemic-era loans, prosecuted years later.
EIDL applications filed in a crisis are now being read like sworn testimony. If agents have called or a subpoena has arrived, the review of your file has already begun.
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.
OIG letters and cross-matched data - we reach the government while civil resolution is still on the table.
Attack the loss math, the intent story, and the §1028A add-on - negotiating from strength, and trying the case where strength is a jury.
The government is still working through pandemic-relief cases, and EIDL files are being reopened years after the fact. An application completed in a chaotic month is now being parsed line by line. The defense: reconstruct what was true at the time, separate error from intent, and engage prosecutors before charging decisions harden.
The data sweep that became a case.
EIDL prosecutions come out of SBA OIG data runs: cross-matched applications, payroll records that do not reconcile, deposits that arrived and left. Agents interview first and indict later - and the interview is where most of these cases are actually lost. Nothing gets said without counsel.
Loan math, not headline math.
The guideline runs on the loss table, and the government opens with the full disbursement. Repayments, legitimate business use, and eligibility that actually existed all cut the number - and §1028A identity counts add a flat two years that only charging decisions can remove. Both fights start before the plea talk does.
Applications are not confessions.
The government must prove the statement was false, material, and knowingly made - not that a rushed application in a broken program had errors. Agent-assisted filings, accountant intermediaries, and genuine eligibility defeat intent. The program’s own chaos is context a jury is entitled to hear.
The pandemic-fraud statute set.
EIDL cases charge wire fraud (twenty years), §1014 false statements on loan applications (thirty years, because the SBA counts as a lending agency), §641 theft of government funds, and §1028A identity theft where names were used. Congress extended the statute of limitations for pandemic loan fraud to ten years - 2020 files stay live until 2030. Dollar thresholds drive charging: smaller cases often resolve civilly, and counsel’s first job is keeping yours there.
If OIG letters have started arriving.
Do not amend applications or “fix” records after the fact - every edit is a new false statement with a fresh date. Gather what supported eligibility when you applied: revenue records, payroll, the business you actually ran. Repayment discussions, opened through counsel, have converted criminal referrals into civil settlements - the government wants the money more than it wants the trial.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On the record, on the wire.
Get ahead of the case.
Answered within 24 hours, guaranteed. Some stories are better told out loud -
212 300 5196