Criminal Defense Lawyers

Wisconsin Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers

Last Updated on: 21st December 2025, 09:53 pm

Wisconsin Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Were going to tell you things about federal criminal defense in Wisconsin that most attorneys won’t say out loud. Not because there keeping secrets. Because most of them have never actually practiced in federal court and dont understand how different it is.

Heres what you need to understand right now, before we get into districts and statistics and case examples. If federal agents have contacted you in Wisconsin – whether your in Milwaukee or Madison or Green Bay – your not at the beginning of there investigation. Your near the end of it. By the time the FBI knocks on your door, or the IRS sends that letter, or federal prosecutors ask for a meeting, they’ve probably spent twelve to twenty-four months building a case against you. There going through your bank records. Your emails. Your text messages. There interviewing people who work for you, or worked for you, or did business with you. And your sitting there thinking the investigation is starting. Its not starting. Its ending. Your being given a chance to cooperate before they file charges they’ve already decided to bring.

Wisconsin’s federal conviction rate is 97.8%. That means for every 100 people charged in federal court in this state, fewer than three avoid conviction. Those three include people who got dismissed, people who won at trial, and people who cooperated there way to favorable outcomes. The trial acquittal rate – people who actually went to trial and won – is 0.4%. Not 4%. Zero point four percent. If you go to trial in federal court in Wisconsin, you have a 99.6% chance of conviction. These aren’t numbers designed to scare you. There numbers designed to wake you up to what your actually facing.

The reason the conviction rate is so high isnt because federal juries love prosecutors. Its because federal prosecutors only file cases there virtually certain to win. They spend years investigating. They dont file charges to see what sticks. They file when conviction is nearly guaranteed. And that changes everything about how you need to approach your defense.

Two Federal Districts, Two Different Prosecution Machines

Wisconsin is divided into two federal judicial districts, and understanding which one has jurisdiction over your case matters enormously because there priorities are different.

The Eastern District of Wisconsin covers Milwaukee, Green Bay, and the eastern part of the state. This district is headquartered in Milwaukee, and its prosecution priorities reflect the fact that Milwaukee is Wisconsin’s financial and business center. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District focus heavily on white-collar crime – bank fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, public corruption, and healthcare fraud. Milwaukee also hosts one of the nations oldest Medicare Fraud Strike Forces, established in 2007. That Strike Force has been hunting healthcare billing fraud for eighteen years. If your a doctor, clinic owner, pharmacy operator, or healthcare billing manager in the Eastern District, understand that your facing specialized prosecutors who’ve spent nearly two decades developing pattern recognition for billing fraud schemes.

The Eastern District also prosecutes significant public corruption cases. Wisconsin has a long history of public officials – mayors, county executives, state legislators – facing federal charges for corruption. Bribery. Kickback schemes. Misuse of public funds. If your involved in government contracts, lobbying, or public administration in Milwaukee or Green Bay, your operating in a jurisdiction were federal corruption prosecutions are routine.

The Western District of Wisconsin is headquartered in Madison. This district covers the western part of the state, including Madison, La Crosse, Eau Claire, and the rural areas in between. Because Madison is the state capital, the Western District handles alot of cases involving state government – public corruption at the state level, fraud involving state contracts, and crimes committed by state employees. The Western District also prosecutes healthcare fraud (Wisconsin has a high concentration of rural healthcare providers), drug trafficking conspiracies (especially methamphetamine distribution networks in rural areas), and financial fraud involving agricultural businesses.

Heres were the district split matters practically. The Eastern District has slightly higher conviction rates (98.1% vs 97.4% in the Western District) and tends to pursue larger, more complex white-collar prosecutions. The Western District, because it covers more rural areas, handles more drug conspiracy cases and has more experience with agricultural fraud – inflated crop insurance claims, dairy subsidy fraud, equipment loan fraud. If your a farmer or agricultural business owner facing federal charges, your likely in the Western District, and the prosecutors there have seen every scheme involving overstated yields, phantom livestock, and false subsidy applications.

Both districts are aggressive. Both have conviction rates well above the national federal average of 97%. The difference is priority and specialization. Know which machine your facing.

The Investigation You Never Knew Was Happening

This is the part were most Wisconsin defendants make catastrophic mistakes. Because they think the investigation starts when they find out about it. It dosent.

Federal investigations are slow, methodical, and secret. There not like state investigations were a detective shows up, asks questions, and maybe files charges a few weeks later. Federal investigations of complex crimes – healthcare fraud, bank fraud, public corruption, wire fraud – take twelve to thirty-six months on average. During that time, federal agents are operating completely outside your awareness.

They’ve served administrative subpoenas on your bank. Your getting copies of every check you wrote, every deposit you made, every wire transfer, going back years. They’ve subpoenaed your email provider – Google, Microsoft, whoever hosts your business email – and there reading everything you’ve sent and recieved. They’ve interviewed your employees, usually approaching them at home and making it very clear that lying to a federal agent is a felony. Your employees are scared. There cooperating. There telling investigators things you didnt even know they knew.

If your under investigation for healthcare fraud, federal agents have already pulled your Medicare billing records and compared them to patient files. There using software to identify patterns – billing for services not provided, upcoding, unbundling. There bringing in medical reviewers to assess whether your documentation supports the billing codes you submitted. And your sitting in your clinic seeing patients, completely unaware that a forensic analysis of your billing is happening in a federal office building.

In 2019, a Madison healthcare executive thought he was having a routine compliance discussion with his clinics billing company about some Medicare reimbursement questions. He answered there questions. Explained his billing practices. Provided documentation. Eighteen months later, FBI agents showed up at his home at 6am with a search warrant. Turns out that billing company had reported irregularities to the Office of Inspector General, and federal investigators had been building a case using his own compliance discussions as evidence of knowledge and intent. He’d been helping them build the case against him without knowing he was even under investigation. He plead guilty to healthcare fraud and got 41 months in federal prison.

Heres the critical mistake Wisconsin defendants make. When federal agents first contact you – whether its a letter asking for a meeting, or agents showing up at your business, or a subpoena for documents – your first instinct is to cooperate. To explain. To show them your innocent. Because thats what works in state court, were cooperation early can make charges go away.

In federal court, that instinct destroys cases. Because by the time there contacting you, they’ve already built most of there case. There not investigating anymore. There offering you a chance to make statements that will be used against you at trial. Every explanation you give gets compared to the documentary evidence they’ve already collected. If you misremember a date, or get a detail wrong, or contradict an email they’ve already read, you’ve now made a false statement to federal agents – which is itself a federal felony under 18 USC 1001.

The investigation you need to defend against started months or years before you knew about it. And the window to actually defend yourself – before charges are filed – is closing the moment federal agents make contact.

Milwaukee’s 18-Year-Old Fraud Detection Machine

Lets talk about the Medicare Fraud Strike Force in Milwaukee, because if your a healthcare provider in Wisconsin facing federal investigation, this is what your up against.

The Department of Justice established Medicare Fraud Strike Forces in 2007 as part of a national initiative to combat healthcare fraud. Milwaukee was one of the first cities to get a Strike Force team. That means for eighteen years, there’s been a specialized unit of federal prosecutors, FBI agents, HHS-OIG investigators, and forensic accountants in Milwaukee doing nothing but healthcare fraud cases. Not general federal crimes. Not rotating through different case types. Just healthcare fraud. For eighteen years.

That institutional expertise is devastating for defendants. These prosecutors have seen every billing scheme. Every documentation trick. Every upcoding pattern. Every phantom patient setup. They know what normal billing looks like for every medical specialty – cardiology, orthopedics, pain management, physical therapy, psychiatry. They have statistical models that flag outlier billing patterns. If your billing is higher than 95% of comparable providers in your specialty and geography, your going to get reviewed. And the review wont be by someone learning healthcare fraud. Itll be by prosecutors who’ve been doing this longer than some doctors have been in practice.

The Strike Force conviction rate exceeds 95%. Since 2007, they’ve prosecuted more than 200 defendants. Most plead guilty. The ones who went to trial lost. The sentences range from probation for minor schemes to decades in federal prison for large-scale fraud.

Heres what healthcare providers in Wisconsin get wrong about federal fraud investigations. They think documentation protects them. They think if the chart says they did it, Medicare should pay for it. They think because the billing software generated the codes automatically, there not responsible.

None of that matters if the Strike Force decides your billing doesnt match medical necessity standards. There going to bring in independent medical reviewers. Those reviewers will look at your patient charts and ask: was this service medically necessary? Was this level of service justified by the documentation? Could this condition have been treated with less expensive intervention? If the reviewers say no, your documentation dosent matter. You’ve billed for services that weren’t medically necessary, and that’s fraud.

A Wisconsin clinic CEO was convicted in 2018 for a $1.8 million Medicaid fraud scheme involving false diagnoses of children. His charts said the kids had certain conditions. The medications prescribed matched those diagnoses. The billing codes were correct for those diagnoses. But when independent reviewers examined the children, they didnt have the conditions he’d diagnosed. He’d been diagnosing conditions to justify prescribing medications that generated higher reimbursements. The documentation looked perfect. The scheme still fell apart when subjected to independent medical review. He got 82 months.

If your a healthcare provider and federal agents or OIG investigators have contacted you, understand that your not dealing with general prosecutors learning healthcare law. Your dealing with a machine that’s been refining its detection methods for eighteen years. Your billing patterns have already been analyzed. Your charts have probably already been reviewed. By the time they contact you, they believe they can prove fraud. Whether you can disprove it is a different question – and one you should never try to answer without experienced federal defense counsel who understands healthcare fraud.

The Numbers Nobody Puts on Billboards

Lets get specific about what happens to people charged with federal crimes in Wisconsin. Not the sanitized version. The actual numbers.

Conviction rate: 97.8% overall. Eastern District: 98.1%. Western District: 97.4%. Both higher than the national federal average of 97%. That means if your charged federally in Wisconsin, you have roughly a 2% chance of avoiding conviction through any means – dismissal, acquittal, or hung jury.

Plea rate: Approximately 90% of federal defendants in Wisconsin plead guilty. They dont go to trial. They negotiate plea agreements. Why? Because trial is nearly guaranteed loss, and pleading guilty usually results in a lower sentence than losing at trial.

Trial rate: Only about 2% of federal defendants in Wisconsin go to trial. Of those who do, the acquittal rate is 0.4%. Do the math. If 100 people go to trial, 99.6 are convicted. Maybe one person walks. Maybe.

The trial penalty: Federal defendants who go to trial and lose typically receive sentences 2-3 times longer than defendants who plead guilty to the same charges. Why? Because pleading guilty earns a reduction for “acceptance of responsibility” under the sentencing guidelines – usually a 2-3 level reduction, which can mean years off your sentence. Going to trial means you dont get that reduction. You also often trigger prosecutors asking for upward departures based on “obstruction of justice” if you testified and the jury didnt believe you. The trial penalty is real, and its designed to make pleading guilty more attractive than exercising your constitutional right to trial.

Sentencing reality: Federal sentences in Wisconsin range from probation (rare, usually only for minor fraud with cooperation) to life imprisonment (drug kingpins, violent crimes). The median federal sentence in Wisconsin is approximately 36 months. But that median is misleading because it includes alot of short drug possession sentences. For white-collar crimes – healthcare fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud – sentences are driven by loss amounts. Fraud involving $1-2 million typically results in sentences of 3-5 years. Fraud involving $10+ million can result in 10-15 years. And those sentences are real time – federal inmates serve a minimum of 85% of there sentence. Theres no parole in federal prison. That program ended in 1987. If your sentenced to 10 years, your doing at least 8.5 years.

Where you actually go: Wisconsin has one federal prison – FCI Oxford, a medium-security facility. If your sentence and security classification allow, you might be designated to Oxford. But many Wisconsin federal defendants get designated to facilities in other states – FCI Sandstone in Minnesota, FCI Terre Haute in Indiana, USP Marion in Illinois. The Bureau of Prisons makes designation decisions based on security level, program needs, and bed space. You dont get to choose. Your family in Madison might have to drive six hours to visit you in Indiana.

The 85% reality: Federal good time credit is capped at 15%. That means you serve a minimum of 85% of your sentence. Theres no early release for overcrowding. Theres no parole board. The only way to reduce your sentence below 85% is through cooperation – providing substantial assistance to prosecutors in other cases – which can earn a Rule 35 motion for sentence reduction. But that requires having valuable information and being willing to testify against others. Most defendants dont have information valuable enough to earn meaningful cooperation credit.

These numbers explain why federal defense is fundamentally different from state defense. In state court, your lawyer might say “we can beat this at trial.” In federal court, your lawyer should be saying “we need to understand what they have, assess cooperation possibilities, and negotiate the best possible plea agreement – because trial is almost certainly a loss.” If your lawyer is promising you a trial victory in federal court without even knowing what evidence the government has, get a different lawyer.

Wisconsin-Specific Federal Traps

Wisconsin defendants get caught in federal schemes that are specific to this states economy and culture. Understanding these traps matters because they often start as something that seems minor or even legal, and escalate into federal charges with decades of exposure.

Manufacturing and Equipment Fraud: Wisconsin has a strong manufacturing sector – machinery, equipment, automotive parts, industrial products. Federal bank fraud cases often start when manufacturers inflate asset values to secure equipment loans or lines of credit. You tell the bank your machinery is worth $2 million to get a loan. The bank later has it appraised at $800,000. Now your being investigated for bank fraud under 18 USC 1344, which carries a maximum of 30 years. What you thought was “normal business optimism” about asset values becomes a federal felony when the bank claims you knowingly provided false information to obtain credit.

Dairy and Agricultural Subsidy Fraud: Wisconsin is Americas Dairyland. That means theres significant federal money flowing through dairy subsidies, crop insurance programs, and USDA assistance programs. Federal prosecutors in the Western District have extensive experience prosecuting farmers who inflated crop yields to get higher insurance payouts, claimed phantom livestock to get USDA subsidies, or misrepresented acreage to qualify for federal farm programs. These cases often start as USDA administrative investigations and get referred to federal prosecutors when the numbers dont add up. What starts as a civil overpayment issue becomes federal wire fraud when prosecutors prove you knowingly submitted false information.

Badgercare and Medicaid Fraud: Badgercare is Wisconsins Medicaid program. Healthcare providers who bill Badgercare are subject to both state and federal fraud prosecution because Medicaid is jointly funded. Heres the trap: you might think your dealing with a state Medicaid audit. But if the state finds evidence of fraud, they refer it to federal prosecutors and the Medicare Fraud Strike Force. Suddenly your state license suspension issue becomes a federal felony prosecution with years of federal prison exposure. This happens constantly in Wisconsin because the Strike Force actively works with state regulators to identify fraud.

PPP Loan Fraud: During COVID, thousands of Wisconsin small businesses applied for Paycheck Protection Program loans. Some inflated employee counts. Some claimed payroll they didnt have. Some used the money for non-approved purposes. Federal prosecutors have been aggressively prosecuting PPP fraud, and the charges arent “PPP fraud” – there bank fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements to SBA. Each count carries up to 30 years. A Wisconsin restaurant owner who inflated his payroll by $150,000 to get a bigger PPP loan is now facing 20 years under a bank fraud indictment. He thought he was fudging numbers on a government form. Prosecutors charged it as defrauding a federally insured financial institution.

Public Corruption in Madison: Because Madison is the state capital, theres significant federal money flowing through state contracts, federal grants to state agencies, and federally funded programs administered by the state. Public officials who take kickbacks, steer contracts to friends, or misuse federal grant money face federal corruption charges – not state charges. Federal prosecutors dont need the governor’s permission to investigate state officials. The FBI has jurisdiction over any corruption involving federal funds or interstate commerce (which is almost everything). Wisconsin has seen state legislators, county executives, and Madison city officials prosecuted federally for corruption that state prosecutors might have handled differently.

University Research Grant Fraud: Wisconsin has major research universities – UW-Madison, Medical College of Wisconsin, Marquette. These institutions receive hundreds of millions in federal research grants from NIH, NSF, DOD. When researchers fabricate data, misuse grant funds, or lie on grant applications, federal prosecutors charge them with wire fraud and making false statements. A UW-Madison researcher was prosecuted federally in 2018 for falsifying data in an NIH-funded study. He didnt steal money. He lied about research results. Federal prosecutors charged him with defrauding the government of accurate information – and he got 57 months.

The pattern across all these traps is the same: something that seems like a state issue, or a civil issue, or a minor compliance problem escalates into federal criminal charges because federal money or federally insured institutions were involved. And once its federal, the conviction rate is 97.8%, the sentences are measured in years, and your state criminal defense lawyer is completely out of his depth.

What Actually Helps in Wisconsin Federal Court

After everything Ive described – the 97.8% conviction rate, the 18-year-old Strike Force, the trial penalty, the investigation that started before you knew it existed – you might be wondering what actually works. What can a federal criminal defense attorney do against this system?

Before you think this is defeatist – its not. The 2.2% non-conviction rate includes real victories. Dismissals. Acquittals. Cooperation agreements that reduce decades to years. But those victories almost always have one thing in common: they happened because someone understood the federal system BEFORE making irreversible mistakes.

The question isnt whether you can fight. Its whether your fighting at the right time, with the right representation, using federal rules instead of state assumptions.

Early intervention during the investigation phase: This is the single most important factor in federal cases. If your being investigated but havent been charged yet, an experienced federal attorney can sometimes prevent charges from being filed at all. How? By communicating with prosecutors during the investigation, presenting mitigating evidence, offering cooperation if you have information about others, or convincing prosecutors that the evidence dosent support the charges there considering. Once your indicted, the leverage shifts dramatically against you. Pre-indictment is when you have maximum leverage – if you have experienced counsel who knows how to use it.

Most Wisconsin defendants dont even know there being investigated until the search warrant gets executed or the indictment is unsealed. By then, the window for early intervention has closed. This is why – if federal agents contact you for any reason, even if it seems like routine questions – you should immediately consult with a federal defense attorney before saying anything. That “routine conversation” might be the last chance to shape the case before charges.

Understanding cooperation strategy: Federal cooperation is completely different from state cooperation. In state court, prosecutors often offer deals early – cooperate and we’ll reduce the charges. In federal court, prosecutors want you to proffer first. A proffer is a meeting where you tell them everything you know, answer there questions, and provide information about your own conduct and others. In exchange, they sign a proffer letter saying they wont use your exact words against you at trial – but they CAN use everything you told them to find other evidence.

Heres the trap. If you proffer and then decide not to cooperate – maybe you cant deliver what you promised, maybe you fail a polygraph, maybe your information turns out to be less valuable than you thought – youve made everything worse. Prosecutors now know your entire defense strategy. They know what your going to say at trial. And if you testify differently than what you said in the proffer, they can use your proffer statements to impeach you.

Cooperation can be enormously valuable in Wisconsin federal cases, especially if your facing decades of exposure. But it requires an attorney who understands federal cooperation strategy – when to proffer, what to offer, how to verify your information is valuable before committing to cooperation, and how to negotiate the cooperation agreement to maximize sentence reduction. Cooperating without experienced counsel is how defendants end up helping the government convict them without getting any benefit in return.

Experienced federal defense counsel: This should be obvious, but its not. Most Wisconsin criminal defense attorneys practice in state court. They handle OWIs, assaults, drug possession, thefts. There excellent at what they do. But federal criminal defense is a different practice. Different procedural rules. Different sentencing system. Different investigation practices. Different cooperation dynamics. An attorney who’s never calculated federal sentencing guidelines, or never negotiated with an AUSA, or never defended a client in front of a federal judge, is going to make mistakes that cost you years of your life.

Look for attorneys who regularly practice in federal court – specifically the Eastern or Western District of Wisconsin. Who’ve appeared before the specific judge assigned to your case. Who understand how the AUSA on your case operates. Who know the local federal defender attorneys (because federal defenders are excellent and often set the standard for defense work). Experience in federal court is not optional. Its the difference between someone who understands the machine and someone who’s guessing.

Sentencing expertise: Even if you plead guilty – which most defendants do – sentencing in federal court is where experienced defense attorneys earn there fee. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines are complicated. Calculating base offense levels. Applying specific offense characteristics. Determining criminal history category. Arguing for downward departures. Challenging guideline calculations. This is technical work that requires expertise. A difference of 2-3 levels in the guidelines can mean the difference between 5 years and 10 years. An attorney who dosent understand federal sentencing is going to accept guideline calculations that should be challenged.

Challenging the investigation: Even with a 97.8% conviction rate, there are cases that should be fought. Fourth Amendment violations. Illegal searches. Coerced statements. Violations of Miranda rights. Prosecutorial misconduct. Brady violations (government hiding exculpatory evidence). Entrapment. Lack of criminal intent. Mens rea defenses. Statute of limitations issues. These defenses require an attorney who knows federal criminal procedure and constitutional law and is willing to file motions that most attorneys wouldnt even think of.

Todd Spodek and the team at Spodek Law Group have represented clients in federal courts across the country, including complex cases in Wisconsin. We understand that federal defense isnt about promising trial victories you cant deliver. Its about meticulous investigation, strategic positioning, understanding when cooperation makes sense and when it dosent, calculating sentencing exposure accurately, and knowing exactly when to fight and when to negotiate.

If your facing federal charges in Wisconsin – or if federal agents have contacted you and charges seem likely – dont wait. Dont talk to investigators without counsel. Dont assume your state criminal lawyer can handle this. Call 212-300-5196 for a consultation. We’ll give you an honest assessment of where you stand, what the governments likely case looks like, what your options actually are, and what strategy makes sense given the specific facts of your situation.

The federal conviction rate in Wisconsin is 97.8%. That number dosent mean you should give up. It means you need to understand what your actually facing, fight smart instead of fighting blind, and work with attorneys who know the federal system from the inside. Because by the time you know your being investigated, the government has already built most of there case. Your defense needs to start immediately – not next week, not after you “see what happens,” not after the indictment. Immediately.

This is serious. Treat it that way.