Ohio Federal Criminal Lawyers.
Home of the largest bribery case in state history - the FirstEnergy scandal - plus healthcare fraud in volume, the opioid docket’s long tail, and two districts that split the state’s five big metros.
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.
The districts.
Sixty million dollars of bribery, prosecuted.
The Southern District’s Householder case - a $60 million bribery scheme around a nuclear bailout, ending with the Speaker of the Ohio House convicted under RICO - is the largest public-corruption prosecution in state history and the template for how Ohio’s U.S. Attorneys now build cases: wiretaps, cooperating lobbyists, and enterprise theories. Cleveland’s corruption docket (county executives, councilmen, judges) runs the same genre at municipal scale.
Healthcare fraud fills both districts - hospital systems, pain management’s post-opioid aftermath, and pharmacy cases - while the drug docket transitioned from pills to fentanyl on the I-70/I-75 corridors. Sixth Circuit law governs, with an active sentencing-appeal practice that rewards preserved objections.
Federal defense lawyers in Ohio, sixty million dollars of precedent.
The Householder template.
The largest bribery case in Ohio history - $60 million around a nuclear bailout, the Speaker of the House convicted under RICO - was built in the Southern District with wiretaps and cooperating lobbyists. It’s the template now: Ohio’s U.S. Attorneys charge corruption as enterprise, not episode. Cleveland runs the same genre at municipal scale. Around it: healthcare fraud in both districts, the opioid docket’s long tail, fentanyl on I-70/I-75, and firearms volume.
What you’re actually up against.
Title III intercepts in the corruption files. Billing analytics in the healthcare ones. Sixth Circuit review with one of the country’s most active sentencing-appeal practices - preserved objections are worth real years here. Enterprise charging means peripheral people get indicted at ringleader scale. The defense that works shrinks the enterprise before trial ever starts.
Why Spodek Law Group.
We’re not your average federal defense firm - we get it. Over 50 years of combined experience. Thousands of federal cases since 1976, second generation. The Sorokin defense became a Netflix series. The R. Kelly witness matter made the AP wire. When federal cases break, the press calls this firm - and prosecutors know exactly which defense lawyers try cases. It changes every conversation about yours.
Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati are short flights from New York, and we appear in both Ohio districts with local counsel where required. RICO defense - predicates, Reves, continuity - is core practice.
The clock is already running.
A lobbyist cooperating. A statehouse subpoena. An auditor inside the hospital system. Ohio’s big cases run years before they surface - the window is while they’re still quiet. The consultation is free. It’s confidential. It’s answered 24/7 - 212 300 5196. The government has a head start. Stop giving it a bigger one.
Any district is home ground.
Federal procedure is national - the same rules, the same guidelines, the same DOJ playbook in Ohio as everywhere else. Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati are all short flights from New York; we appear in both Ohio districts with local counsel where required. Admission is handled by pro hac vice motion with local counsel where required, the client portal keeps every document and conversation in one place across any distance, and the person standing up in court is the lawyer you hired - not a referral.
195 Montague Street, Brooklyn
1301 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown
611 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
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.
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.
Subpoenaed inboxes and a drawn timeline - we engage prosecutors at the target-letter stage, where charging is still a choice.
Suppress the overbroad seizure, contest intended loss, redraw the timeline - and when trial is the advantage, intent gets tried on the whole inbox, not the excerpts.
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