Free Consultations & We're Available 24/7
WE'RE A BOUTIQUE LAW FIRM.
TRUST 50 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.
WE SERVICE CLIENTS NATIONWIDE.
You’re searching for a way to know. A database to check. A form to file. A phone number to call. You want certainty – a definitive answer about whether federal agents are building a case against you right now. Your instinct tells you there must be a legal mechanism to find out. There’s the Freedom of Information Act. There’s the FBI tip line. There’s the business card that agent left at your door. Somewhere in this system, there has to be a way to get a straight answer about whether you’re under investigation. That instinct is about to destroy you. The system isn’t designed to give you answers. It’s designed to keep you uninformed while documenting every attempt you make to find out.
Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to explain why you can’t find out if you’re under federal investigation – and why every method you’re considering either won’t work or will actively make your situation worse. There is no database to check. The Freedom of Information Act has an explicit exclusion for ongoing criminal investigations – the FBI can legally respond “no records exist” when they’re actively building a case against you. If you call the agent who left a business card, they’re prohibited by law from disclosing the nature of any investigation. The government designed the system so you cannot obtain this information. And here’s what nobody tells you: every attempt you make to find out becomes part of the evidence file. Your FOIA request gets documented. Your call to the agent gets noted. Your questions to associates get reported. The search for truth is itself actually the trap.
That’s the reality that breaks everyone’s expectations. You imagine transparency. You imagine rights. You imagine that in America, you can find out if the government is investigating you. The opposite is true. The system is architected for opacity. Federal investigations operate in deliberate darkness, and every tool you think might illuminate your situation has been explicitly designed with exceptions that protect the investigation from you. By the time you understand this, your search for answers has already created evidence of what prosecutors call “consciousness of guilt.”
Heres the system revelation that explains everything. The first exclusion under the Freedom of Information Act – exclusion (c)(1) – specificaly protects ongoing criminal law enforcement investigations when the subject is unaware that the investigation is pending. Read that again. The law literaly allows the government to hide the investigation from you if telling you would interfere with enforcement proceedings. This isnt a loophole. Its the design.
The FBI uses something called a “Glomar response” when people try to find out if there under investigation. Named after a famous submarine case, the Glomar response means the agency neither confirms nor denies the existance of responsive records. You file a FOIA request asking if the FBI has files on you. They respond with neither confirmation nor denial. You have no more information then when you started – but now the FBI has documentation that you were trying to find out.
OK so heres what this means practically. There is no uniform database to look up who is under federal investigation. None. Not for the public. Not even for attorneys. The only way to obtain any information about investigation status is threw informal inquiries made by experienced federal defense counsel to the supervising prosecutor – the Assistant United States Attorney. And even that avenue has severe limitations. Prosecutors arent required to disclose anything. They often dont.
The system isn’t accidentally opaque. It’s designed to keep you uninformed while you create evidence through your attempts to find out.
Think about the psychology of that design. Your under investigation. You dont know it. Every instinct tells you to confirm or deny your suspicions. Every method you try – FOIA requests, calls to agents, questions to associates – gets documented. By the time the investigation becomes visible to you, theres already a file of evidence showing you were concerned enough to search. Prosecutors characterize that as consciousness of guilt. Your attempt to excercise transparency rights becomes proof you knew something was wrong.
The Freedom of Information Act feels like the perfect solution. Its federal law. It guarantees access to government records. You have a right to see your own FBI file. All of this is technicaly true – and all of it is designed to mislead you about ongoing investigations.
Heres the consequence cascade that destroys people who file FOIA requests. You submit a request threw eFOIPA, the FBI’s electronic portal. The FBI recieves your request. That receit is documented in there systems. Your request itself becomes part of any investigation file – evidence that you were concerned about federal scrutiny. Even if the FBI responds with “no records exist,” that response dosent mean your clean. It might mean the investigation is ongoing and protected by exclusion (c)(1).
The timeline makes this even worse. The standard FOIA response time is 20 working days – aproximately one month. But the FBI recieves thousands of requests daily. There divided into five processing tracks based on complexity. Complex requests can take months or years. By the time you recieve a response confirming you were investigated, the investigation might be over. Charges might already be filed. The “transparency” you sought arrived to late to matter.
At Spodek Law Group, weve seen this pattern destroy clients who thought FOIA was there friend. They filed requests seeking clarity. Those requests showed up in prosecutor files as evidence of concern. The very tool designed for government transparency became a weapon used against them. The FBI’s public reading room – called The Vault – contains only closed investigation files. Everything current is protected. Everything your actualy worried about is invisible.
And heres the part that makes this even more brutal. If you try to request information about someone else – a spouse, a business partner, a family member – the FBI requires there consent or proof of death. Without that, you get the Glomar response: neither confirm nor deny. Your attempt to understand if your associates are under investigation gets documented as your interest in federal scrutiny. The web of evidence grows with every inquiry.
An FBI agent knocked on your door. You werent home. They left a business card with a handwritten note asking you to call. Your first instinct is to call back, explain yourself, clear up any confusion. That instinct will destroy everything.
Todd Spodek has recieved hundreds of calls from people holding FBI business cards, asking what to do. Heres what he tells every one of them: calling that number creates evidence. Everything you say gets documented. The agent is not allowed to disclose the nature of any investigation – thats federal policy. But there very much allowed to document every word you speak. Your questions become evidence of your concerns. Your explanations become admissions. Your attempt to seem cooperative becomes statements that can be used against you at trial.
Heres the inversion that saves people. Dont think of that business card as an invitation to explain yourself. Think of it as a test. The FBI wants to know if youll talk without a lawyer. They want to know if youll volunteer information. They want to know if youll ask questions that reveal what your worried about. Every response you could give – except silence – helps there case.
The agent who left that card has already done significant investigation before knocking on your door. They dont knock first. They knock last. By the time an agent appears at your residence, theyve likely interviewed witnesses, subpoenaed records, and built the framework of a case. There giving you an oportunity to add to there evidence. Calling back is that oportunity.
The business card isn’t an invitation to explain. It’s a test to see if you’ll create evidence without legal protection.
What should you do with that card? Give it to a federal criminal defense attorney immediately. Your attorney can contact the agent on your behalf, learn what the investigation concerns, and communicate in ways that are protected. Nothing you say directly to that agent is protected. Everything your attorney says is strategic.
The federal investigation system uses three designations for people connected to cases. Understanding these classifications reveals why knowing your status matters so much – and why its so difficult to find out.
Witness means you have information relevant to an investigation but arnt suspected of criminal conduct. You might have emails. You might have observed conversations. You might have financial records that prosecutors need. Witness is the safest category – the indictment rate for witnesses is under 5 percent. But heres the uncomfortable truth: witnesses can become subjects or targets based on what they say during interviews.
Subject means your conduct is within the scope of the investigation but prosecutors havent decided wheather to charge you. Your in the gray zone. The indictment rate for subjects is 30 to 40 percent – significantly higher then witnesses but not inevitable. What you do while your a subject determins wheather you stay there, become a witness, or escalate to target.
Target means prosecutors beleive you committed a crime and intend to seek an indictment. The indictment rate for targets is 85 to 90 percent. If your designated as a target, charges are coming. The question isnt if but when.
Heres the hidden connection nobody explains. These designations change. A witness who says too much during an FBI interview becomes a subject. A subject whose attorney negotiates effectivly becomes a witness. A subject who ignores the situation becomes a target. The category your in today isnt permanant – but every action you take influences which direction you move.
Only an attorney can find out which category you fall into. And even then, prosecutors arnt required to disclose. They often provide designation information during proffer negotiations or when considering plea discussions. But there under no obligation to tell you anything until indictment.
If theres any way to learn wheather your under federal investigation, it runs threw an experienced federal defense attorney. But even this path has severe limitations you need to understand.
Attorneys can make informal inquiries to the Assistant United States Attorney supervising any potential investigation. They can ask about there clients status. They can learn wheather a grand jury has convened. They can sometimes determine wheather there client is a witness, subject, or target. These inquiries are the only channel that exists for obtaining investigation information – and there far from guarenteed to produce answers.
Prosecutors often decline to provide status information. Theres no legal requirement that they disclose anything before indictment. Some AUSAs are forthcoming with defense counsel. Some provide minimal information. Some provide nothing at all. The quality of information you can obtain depends on the relationship your attorney has with the prosecutors office, the stage of the investigation, and prosecutorial discretion.
At Spodek Law Group, we make the inquiries that only attorneys can make. We contact the U.S. Attorney’s office. We reach out to supervising agents. We work our network of relationships built over years of federal practice. Sometimes we learn significant information that changes defense strategy. Sometimes we learn nothing – because theres nothing prosecutors are willing to share.
Heres what your attorney can learn if prosecutors choose to share: your designation status, the general nature of allegations, wheather a grand jury is active, and sometimes the anticipated timeline. Heres what your attorney almost never learns: specific evidence the government has, witness identities, or the exact charges being considered. Grand jury proceedings are secret by law. Even your own attorney cannot access grand jury materials until after indictment.
The uncomfortable truth is this: hiring a federal defense attorney is often the only way to obtain any information, but the information available is limited by design.
Heres something else that most people dont understand about attorney inquiries. When prosecutors do respond to status questions, that response itself becomes strategicaly significant. If the AUSA tells your attorney your a “target,” that means indictment is probable and preparation for charges should begin immediately. If they say your a “subject,” theres still uncertainty – you havent been cleared but you havent been targeted either. If they say your a “witness,” you might think your safe, but witnesses become subjects all the time based on there own statements.
The timing of attorney inquiries also matters. Early inquiries – before a grand jury convenes – sometimes result in more information then late inquiries. Once grand jury proceedings begin, secrecy rules tighten. Prosecutors become more cautious about disclosure. The window for obtaining meaningful status information narrows as investigation progresses. This creates a cruel irony: the longer you wait to hire counsel, the less information counsel can potentially obtain.
And heres the final uncomfortable truth about the attorney path. Even when prosecutors provide designation information, that designation can change. Your attorney learns today that your a witness. You testify before the grand jury. Something you say raises questions. Tomorrow your a subject. Next week your a target. The status information you fought so hard to obtain was accurate when provided but became obsolete based on subsequent developments. Status is a snapshot, not a permanant classification.
The search for confirmation is a trap. Every method leads to dead ends that create evidence. The question isnt how to find out – its what to do regardless of wheather you can confirm investigation status.
Step 1: Stop trying to find out directly. Dont file FOIA requests. Dont call FBI agents. Dont question associates about law enforcement contact. Every direct attempt creates documentation. Every inquiry becomes evidence. Accept that confirmation may never come – and prepare accordingly.
Step 2: Consult a federal criminal defense attorney immediately. Not a business lawyer. Not your tax accountant. Not a friend who went to law school. A federal criminal defense attorney who handles investigations and understands the system. This is the only path to even potentially obtaining status information – and the consultation itself is privileged.
Step 3: Preserve every document. Whether or not your under investigation, document preservation is critical. Bank statements, tax returns, emails, contracts, text messages – everything potentially relevant needs to be secured. If investigation exists, destruction is obstruction. If investigation dosent exist, preservation costs you nothing.
Step 4: Stop talking to everyone about your concerns. Every person you discuss this with becomes a potential witness. Your spouse. Your best friend. Your business partner. They can all be compelled to testify about what you told them. The conversation your having right now, processing your worries with someone you trust, could become grand jury testimony.
Step 5: Prepare as if investigation exists. This is the strategic inversion that protects you. You may never confirm wheather the FBI has a file on you. You dont need to confirm to respond appropriatley. Assume the possibility exists and take protective action.
Todd Spodek tells every client the same thing: the goal isnt to find out wheather your under investigation. The goal is to protect yourself wheather investigation exists or not. That protection requires legal guidance, document preservation, and strategic silence. It dosent require confirmation that will never come.
Spodek Law Group has guided hundreds of clients through the uncertainty of potential federal investigation. We know how to make the inquiries that attorneys can make. We know the limitations of those inquiries. We know how to prepare for possibilities while protecting against evidence creation. We tell you the truth about what can and cannot be learned – even when that truth is frustrating.
Call us at 212-300-5196 the moment you suspect investigation might exist. Before you file FOIA requests. Before you call agents. Before you ask questions that create witnesses. The consultation is free. The mistake of searching without guidance creates evidence that lasts forever.
The investigation you’re trying to confirm may or may not exist. You may never know for certain until an indictment arrives – or until it simply doesn’t. But the actions you take while searching for that certainty have consequences either way. Stop searching. Start preparing. The window for protection exists whether you can confirm investigation or not. Don’t waste it trying to find out something the system is designed never to tell you.
Sources:
Very diligent, organized associates; got my case dismissed. Hard working attorneys who can put up with your anxiousness. I was accused of robbing a gemstone dealer. Definitely A law group that lays out all possible options and best alternative routes. Recommended for sure.
- ROBIN, GUN CHARGES ROBIN
NJ CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS