Fraud is a theory until they prove intent.
Wire, mail, and program fraud - the government’s catch-all counts. A transaction that looks bad in hindsight is not a crime unless you meant to deceive.
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.
Federal fraud counts are elastic by design - almost any disputed transaction can be recast as a scheme. That elasticity is also the weakness: the government must prove specific intent to defraud, beyond a reasonable doubt. We litigate what you actually knew and meant at the time, contest the loss amounts that drive sentencing, and force the theory to survive contact with the record.
Charged wherever the government finds a hook.
The federal fraud statutes are drafted wide on purpose - a wire, a mailing, a statement to an agent, and venue follows. Investigations run one to three years through subpoenas and interviews before the target letter lands. The defense that starts at the letter is twice the defense that starts at arraignment.
The loss table is the sentence.
§2B1.1 turns dollars into years: sixteen brackets, each one argued. Intended loss versus actual, credits against loss, victim counts, sophistication - the range is a construction, and constructions can be rebuilt. Six months on a $12 million federal Ponzi, against a government ask of years, is that work in practice.
Fraud requires a liar.
Every fraud count needs a knowing, material deception - not optimism that failed, not a deal that collapsed. Good faith is a complete defense. Puffery is not perjury; breach is not theft. We try the difference, and juries understand it.
Twenty years, count by count.
Wire and mail fraud carry twenty years per transmission - thirty against banks or disaster funds - and §1349 conspiracy needs no completed scheme at all. Companion exposure stacks fast: §1001 false statements (five years), §1028A identity theft (two mandatory consecutive), laundering (twenty). The Supreme Court keeps trimming the theories - Ciminelli ended “right to control” loss - but loss still drives the sentence, which keeps the defense math central in every fraud file we open.
The target-letter week.
A target letter means charging is being drafted, not decided - the week after it arrives is when presentations to prosecutors still change outcomes. Preserve everything; produce nothing without counsel; and start the timeline document now, while memory is fresh: who said what, when, and what you relied on. Good-faith defenses are built from contemporaneous records, and the government already has theirs.
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.
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.
A target letter with a response date - we present to prosecutors before charging, where declinations are still winnable.
Move against the counts, contest the loss table, negotiate from leverage - and when trial is the advantage, good faith gets its jury.
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.
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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.
On the record, on the wire.
Get ahead of the case.
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