Zero jail in a $4M offshore tax evasion case.
Audits become referrals; referrals become prosecutions. The line between a civil tax problem and a criminal one is intent - and timing.
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 audit gone silent - we engage during the eggshell phase, where referrals are still reversible.
Fight the tax-loss number, brief Cheek willfulness, document the deposits - and try good faith when trial is the advantage.
Criminal tax cases require proof of willfulness - that you knew the law and chose to break it. Most tax problems are civil and should stay that way; the defense’s first job is keeping them there. When charges do come, the record can still be fought: in a $4 million offshore tax evasion case, our client served no jail time.
Three years of audits before the knock.
IRS-CI cases begin as civil audits that go quiet - the referral happened and nobody told you. Special agents then interview your preparer, your bank, and finally you. The eggshell-audit phase is where the case is won or lost; counsel belongs in it from the first unusual letter.
The tax table is direct math.
§2T4.1 maps tax loss straight to an offense level - no base, no cushion. But criminal tax loss is not the civil assessment: legitimate deductions, unclaimed credits, and method-of-proof fights cut it directly. Sophisticated-means and illegal-source enhancements get argued; restitution timing moves acceptance. Every dollar of loss is a fraction of a month.
Willfulness under Cheek.
Tax crimes require willfulness - a voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty. Good-faith misunderstanding, reliance on a preparer, and genuine complexity defeat it. The government’s net-worth and bank-deposit methods assume everything unexplained is income; our forensic accountants explain it.
Evasion, false returns, and the eggshell audit.
§7201 evasion carries five years per year charged; §7206(1) false returns, three; §7202 payroll-tax counts reach responsible officers personally. IRS-CI recommends prosecution only a few thousand times a year - it takes the cases it can win, which is why the referral decision is the case. Sentencing runs on the §2T4.1 tax table plus sophisticated-means enhancements; restitution of the tax loss before sentencing measurably moves the acceptance and variance math.
When the revenue agent stops calling back.
A civil auditor gone silent often means a criminal referral is drafting. Stop amending returns - amendments are admissions with signatures. Route your preparer through counsel; accountant-client privilege does not survive a summons, but a Kovel arrangement can. And assemble source documents for the “unexplained” deposits now: the net-worth method collapses when the gifts, loans, and transfers are documented.
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.
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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.
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