Crisis-era applications, judged in hindsight.
PPP prosecutions are still being filed. If your loan file has been flagged, the government is already reading it - the defense should be reading it too.
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.
Strike-force data and a lender referral - we engage while civil resolution and repayment still change the outcome.
Litigate disbursement-versus-loss, the shifting guidance, the broker’s hands on the application - and negotiate from a brief already written.
PPP cases prosecute the paperwork of an emergency: applications completed in days, under rules that changed weekly. Years later, prosecutors parse them for false statements. The defense reconstructs the moment - what the rules said, what you knew, what the funds did - and separates good-faith error from criminal intent before charging decisions are made.
The spreadsheet came first.
PPP cases are data prosecutions: SBA cross-matches, payroll-provider records, bank flags on round-number deposits. The government indicts off the paperwork and expects the plea to follow. It should not - the program’s own rules changed weekly, and the paperwork proves that too.
Disbursement is not loss.
The loss table opens at the full loan amount; repayment, forgiveness eligibility, and payroll actually paid all cut it. §1028A counts add flat consecutive years only a charging decision can remove - so the negotiation is the sentencing. We arrive with the loss brief already written.
Chaos is context.
Guidance that changed by the week, lenders that coached applications, agents that filled in the blanks - intent evaporates in that record. Eligibility that existed, funds used for payroll, and reliance on preparers are defenses juries credit. A rushed application is not a federal felony.
Ten-year lookbacks and stacking counts.
PPP fraud is charged as wire and bank fraud, §1014 false statements, §641 theft of government funds, and §1028A identity theft - with the limitations period extended to ten years, so early-pandemic loans stay chargeable into the 2030s. DOJ’s COVID strike forces run data-first: payroll cross-checks against quarterly 941s, industry-code mismatches, incorporation dates after February 2020. Forgiveness does not immunize - it gets charged as a second fraud. Disbursement-versus-loss is the whole sentencing argument.
What to assemble before the first meeting.
The application as filed, the guidance in force that week (it changed constantly - archive it), payroll records, and what the funds actually paid. Lender communications matter: brokers and agents who “handled everything” carry intent that is not yours. Repayment ability changes outcomes; bring the number you could restore and we will tell you what it buys.
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.
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.
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.
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We decline more federal matters than we accept - and every accepted case gets the whole bench.
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