A denied claim is civil. They want to make it criminal.
Staged-loss theories, inflated claims, provider billing - state and federal prosecutors both hunt here. Intent, again, is the whole game.
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.
An EUO request and a quiet referral - counsel manages the carrier record before it becomes the government’s exhibit.
Contest the valuation, the intent story, and the forensics behind the staged-loss theory - and try the coverage dispute this case actually is.
Insurance fraud cases are built backwards from a suspicious claim - and treat every inconsistency as a lie. But claims are complicated, memories differ, and adjusters are not investigators. We reconstruct the loss, challenge the fraud theory, and keep civil disputes from becoming criminal records.
An SIU file becomes a federal docket.
Carrier special-investigation units build the file first: recorded statements, examinations under oath, adjuster notes. Then the referral lands with postal inspectors and the mail-fraud hook makes it federal. Everything you told the carrier is already in the discovery - which is why nothing more gets said without counsel.
Claim value versus actual loss.
The government charges the gross claim; the guideline should run on actual, provable loss - denied claims, salvage, and legitimate coverage all cut the number. Sophistication and false-statement enhancements get argued, not assumed. The delta between charged loss and real loss is measured in years.
Coverage disputes are not crimes.
A denied claim is a contract fight; fraud requires intent to deceive. Ambiguous applications, agent-completed forms, and honest valuation disagreements defeat willfulness. Arson and staged-loss theories need forensic proof - and defense experts routinely take that proof apart.
Federal hooks on a state crime.
There is no general federal insurance-fraud statute; prosecutors reach it through mail and wire fraud (twenty years), §1033 for insiders of interstate insurers, and laundering for the proceeds. Staged-accident and arson rings draw RICO treatment. The examination under oath - taken without Miranda, by carrier lawyers - is the government’s favorite exhibit; how it is handled decides these cases before indictment.
After the SIU letter.
Treat every carrier communication as testimony: schedule the EUO with counsel, produce documents through counsel, and never guess at valuations under oath. Preserve photos, receipts, and provenance for the claimed loss now. A withdrawn or corrected claim, properly counseled, has ended criminal referrals - the carrier wants the exposure gone more than it wants you prosecuted.
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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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.
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