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Federal Pretrial Motions That Can Strengthen Your Defense
Most federal criminal cases are resolved before the jury is seated. The pretrial motion, filed in writing, argued before a judge who has read every word, is where the actual contest occurs. What the jury sees at trial, if the case reaches trial at all, is a version of events already shaped by the motions […]
read moreWhat Is a Superseding Indictment?
A superseding indictment is the government’s revision of the case against you, delivered after you have already begun to organize a defense around the original charges. It does not arrive because the first indictment contained an error. It arrives because the prosecution has determined that the first indictment was insufficient for what they intend to […]
read moreHow Federal Criminal Cases Differ From State Cases
The Conviction Apparatus The federal conviction rate exceeds ninety percent, and the number obscures more than it reveals. Most of that figure represents guilty pleas, not trial verdicts, because the federal system is constructed to ensure that charges are not filed until the evidence is already substantial. State prosecutions operate on a different sequence. A […]
read moreHow Federal Bail and Detention Hearings Work
The detention hearing determines more about the trajectory of a federal case than any motion, any plea conference, any sentencing memorandum that follows it. A defendant held in federal custody before trial, which can extend eight or ten months depending on the complexity of the charges, faces restricted access to counsel, to family, to the […]
read moreShould I Take My Federal Case to Trial?
The Cost of Going to Trial The federal trial is a wager with asymmetric consequences, and the terms are set before you enter the courtroom. In the federal system, the overwhelming majority of cases conclude with a guilty plea. Not because every defendant is guilty beyond question, but because the structure of federal sentencing converts […]
read moreUnderstanding Federal Plea Agreements
The federal plea agreement is a contract written by the party that holds every structural advantage, presented to the party that holds almost none. That characterization is not a complaint. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 provides the procedural architecture, and the architecture is sound. The problem is not the rule. The problem is what […]
read moreSpecific Federal Crimes
The conspiracy charge is not supplemental. It is the architecture of the federal case itself, the statute that permits the government to convict a person for conduct that person did not perform, based on words that person did not speak, through evidence that would be inadmissible in any other context. Under 18 U.S.C. § 371, […]
read moreThe Federal Criminal Process
The federal criminal process does not begin when charges are filed. It begins, in most cases, months or years before the defendant becomes aware of it, in a room the defendant will never see, with documents the defendant will never read. One perceives the contours of a federal investigation only in retrospect, and by then […]
read moreObstruction of Justice in Federal Cases
How Obstruction Charges Arise The federal obstruction charge is, in most cases, the charge the defendant manufactured after the investigation began. Not before. The original conduct, the fraud or the false filing or the unreported income, generates the investigation. The obstruction generates a second crime with its own sentencing exposure, and in a considerable number […]
read moreFCPA Violations: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Defense
The FCPA did not become safer in 2025. It became less predictable. What the executive branch presented as a pause in enforcement was, in operation, a recalibration of the statute’s prosecutorial architecture. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act itself changed by not a single word. The exposure of individual executives remained largely intact. And the companies […]
read moreFederal Bribery and Public Corruption Charges
The Problem With “Official Act” Federal bribery charges survive or collapse on a distinction the statute declines to articulate with precision. The term “official act,” which appears in 18 U.S.C. § 201 and anchors the definition of bribery under federal law, has been contested in federal courts for over a decade. The Supreme Court has […]
read moreFederal Drug Conspiracy Charges Explained
The federal drug conspiracy statute accomplishes what no other charge in the criminal code can: it converts proximity into culpability. Under 21 U.S.C. § 846, the government does not need to prove that a defendant possessed a controlled substance, sold a controlled substance, or participated in a single completed transaction. The agreement itself is the […]
read moreBank Fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1344): Charges and Penalties
The Reach of Section 1344 The federal bank fraud statute is shorter than most defendants expect it to be. Two subsections, one sentencing provision, and a reach that extends to nearly every transaction involving a federally insured institution. Congress enacted the statute in 1984, modeling its language on the mail fraud provision that had served […]
read morePPP Loan Fraud Investigations: What You Need to Know
The Statute That Moved The window for federal prosecution of PPP loan fraud is not closing. In August 2022, Congress extended the statute of limitations from five years to ten through the PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act. The extension applied to conduct that had already occurred. A loan originated in April 2020 is […]
read moreHealthcare Fraud Defense: Protecting Doctors and Providers
The Current Enforcement Environment Most physicians do not commit fraud. The federal government prosecutes them anyway, and the volume of prosecution has reached a point where that sentence functions less as provocation than as description. In fiscal year 2025, the Department of Justice reported the highest False Claims Act recoveries in the statute’s history, with […]
read moreSecurities Fraud: SEC Investigations and Criminal Exposure
The SEC investigation you are responding to is, in all likelihood, already a criminal matter. The distinction between a civil inquiry and a federal prosecution is not a wall. It is a membrane, and by the time most executives perceive that the membrane has been crossed, their own testimony has become the prosecution’s foundation. The […]
read moreFederal Mail Fraud Explained: Elements and Defenses
The Statute and Its Reach Section 1341 was written in 1872, amended without meaningful revision for over a century, and remains the statute federal prosecutors reach for first when the underlying conduct could be called almost anything. The statute concerns fraud. The mail is merely the jurisdictional mechanism, the thread that pulls what would otherwise […]
read moreFederal Wire Fraud Charges (18 U.S.C. § 1343): Defense Strategies
The statute that governs federal wire fraud is not a scalpel. It is a net, and for the better part of three decades, federal prosecutors have cast it as one. Section 1343 of Title 18 criminalizes the use of interstate electronic communications in furtherance of a scheme to defraud, and its reach extends to virtually […]
read moreFederal Money Laundering Charges and Defenses
The charge that transforms every other count on a federal indictment is money laundering. A wire fraud case carrying a sentencing range of twelve to eighteen months becomes, with the addition of a Section 1956 count, a case in which the court is contemplating a decade or more. Federal prosecutors understand this arithmetic, and they […]
read moreWhat Is Considered a White Collar Crime?
White collar crime is not a charge. It is a classification applied after the fact to conduct that federal and state statutes describe in far more precise terms. No defendant is indicted for “white collar crime.” The indictment names wire fraud, or securities fraud, or conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the label “white collar” […]
read moreWhite Collar Crimes
The Comfort of Declining Numbers Federal white collar prosecutions are declining, and the decline is accelerating. In the first half of fiscal year 2025, new cases fell more than ten percent from the prior year. FBI field offices have redirected agents toward immigration enforcement. The numbers, taken alone, suggest a federal government retreating from financial […]
read moreCan I Get Probation Instead of Prison for a Federal Crime?
Probation is available in federal court. The conditions under which a judge may impose it are considerably narrower than most defendants comprehend when they first receive an indictment. The Statutory Exclusions Under 18 U.S.C. § 3561, a defendant found guilty of a federal offense may be sentenced to probation unless the conviction falls within one […]
read moreFirst-Time Offender in Federal Court: What to Expect
First-Time Offender in Federal Court: What to Expect The phrase “first-time offender” does more work in federal court than it has any right to. Clients arrive with the assumption that the absence of a criminal record functions as a defense, or at minimum a guarantee of leniency. It is neither. What a clean record provides […]
read moreHow to Prepare for Federal Sentencing
The sentence is not decided at the hearing. It is decided in the months before it, through documents the judge reads in chambers, without the benefit of oral advocacy or the defendant’s presence. The hearing itself, in most federal courtrooms, consumes less than an hour. In some, less than thirty minutes. The preparation for that […]
read moreFederal Sentencing Departures and Variances Explained
The sentence is not decided at the hearing. It is decided in the months before it, through documents the judge reads in chambers, without the benefit of oral advocacy or the defendant’s presence. The hearing itself, in most federal courtrooms, consumes less than an hour. In some, less than thirty minutes. The preparation for that […]
read moreWhat Is a Presentence Report (PSR) and Why Does It Matter?
The Document That Sentences You Twice The presentence report determines more than the length of a federal sentence. It determines where that sentence is served, under what conditions, and with what access to programming that can reduce it. Most defendants learn this too late. The report, compiled by a United States Probation Officer in the […]
read moreHow Mandatory Minimum Sentences Work in Federal Court
The Sentence Before the Sentence The mandatory minimum is not the punishment. It is the architecture of a negotiation that begins the moment the indictment is returned, and in most federal cases, the negotiation is the sentence. The statute prescribes a floor. The prosecutor controls access to every door beneath it. Federal mandatory minimum sentencing […]
read moreUnderstanding the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
The federal sentencing guidelines do not sentence anyone. A judge does, in a courtroom, after considering a set of calculations that most defendants encounter for the first time in the weeks following indictment. Most people who search for information about sentencing guidelines are not engaged in academic research. They are reading because a number has […]
read moreFederal Sentencing
The guidelines do not sentence anyone. A judge does, in a courtroom where the arithmetic of offense levels and criminal history categories has already been performed by a probation officer the defendant did not choose and may never see again. The question is what the judge decides to do with that recommendation, and how prepared […]
read moreRule 35 Motions: Reducing Your Sentence After Cooperation
The sentence has already been imposed, the courtroom has already emptied, and the only mechanism for revisiting the number requires someone other than the defendant to act. Rule 35(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permits a federal court to reduce a sentence when a defendant provides substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution […]
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