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SEC Parallel Proceedings: Civil and Criminal Investigations

SEC Parallel Proceedings: Civil and Criminal Investigations The person who cooperates most willingly with an SEC civil investigation is, in a considerable number of cases, the person who furnishes the evidence for their own criminal prosecution. This is not a paradox. It is the design of the system, and it has operated this way since […]

What Factors Do Judges Consider in 5K1.1 Departures?

What Factors Do Judges Consider in 5K1.1 Departures? The five factors enumerated in Section 5K1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines are the least interesting thing about a 5K1.1 departure. Every federal practitioner can recite them. What separates a meaningful sentence reduction from a cosmetic one is how a particular judge, in a particular district, […]

Who Attends a Federal Proffer Meeting?

The room where a federal proffer session convenes is smaller than most clients expect. A conference table at the United States Attorney’s Office, fluorescent lighting, no windows in some offices, and on the government’s side of that table, a concentration of investigative and prosecutorial authority that will determine, in the span of a few hours, […]

Letter Agreements vs. Formal Cooperation Plea Agreements

The letter agreement and the formal cooperation plea agreement are two instruments that sound as if they belong to the same family, though the consequences of confusing them have proven, in case after case, to be severe and permanent. In federal practice, the progression from one to the other follows a sequence that is familiar […]

Should I Cooperate With Federal Prosecutors? Pros and Cons

Should I Cooperate With Federal Prosecutors? The decision to cooperate with federal prosecutors is one you cannot reverse. Once you have entered a room with an assistant United States attorney, once you have begun to speak, the architecture of your defense changes in ways that no subsequent motion or strategic pivot can reconstruct. The information […]

What Is a Proffer Letter and What Does It Mean?

What Is a Proffer Letter and What Does It Mean? The nickname tells you everything you need to know about what the government thinks of this arrangement. “Queen for a day” sounds generous, even whimsical, as if the prosecution were extending a courtesy to someone under investigation. It is a courtesy in the same way […]

Federal Arraignment: What to Expect

Federal Arraignment: What to Expect Most of what determines the outcome of a federal arraignment occurs before the defendant enters the courtroom. The hearing itself, governed by Rule 10 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, is brief. In many districts it concludes in under thirty minutes. The charges are read or summarized, a plea […]

Target Letter vs. Grand Jury Subpoena: What’s the Difference?

Target Letter vs. Grand Jury Subpoena: What Is the Difference? The Paradox at the Threshold The document that announces worse news carries no legal authority whatsoever. A target letter from the United States Attorney’s Office informs you that a federal grand jury has gathered what prosecutors regard as substantial evidence of your involvement in a […]

What Happens If I Lie to the SEC?

What Happens If I Lie to the SEC? The False Statement The lie does not need to be elaborate. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, a single false statement to an SEC enforcement attorney, delivered in what appears to be a routine interview, constitutes a federal crime carrying up to five years of imprisonment. The government […]

SEC Civil Penalties Explained

SEC Civil Penalties Explained The penalty is never the point. The penalty is the instrument the Commission employs to extract something more durable than money: a change in conduct, a public record of wrongdoing, a signal to the market that certain behavior carries a cost the wrongdoer did not anticipate when the behavior seemed profitable. […]

Federal Heroin Trafficking Charges: Your Defense Options

Federal Heroin Trafficking Charges: Your Defense Options The person who cooperates first receives the most favorable sentence, and the person who cooperates last receives, in most cases, the mandatory minimum the statute prescribes. This is the architecture of federal heroin prosecution under 21 U.S.C. § 841, and understanding it is the difference between a sentence […]

Federal Warrant Requirements: Challenging Federal Search Warrants

Federal Warrant Requirements: Challenging Federal Search Warrants The warrant that authorized the search of your property may be the single most important document in your case, and the government is counting on the possibility that no one will read it with care. Most motions to suppress evidence in federal court do not succeed. The reasons […]

Should I Cooperate With Federal Agents About My COVID Loan?

Cooperation Is the Second Question The distinction between a civil settlement and a federal indictment, in most COVID loan cases, turns on what the borrower said before retaining counsel. That sentence should concern you. Not because cooperation is inherently dangerous, and not because silence is inherently safe, but because the decision to speak or to […]

How Long Does a PPP Fraud Investigation Take?

How Long Does a PPP Fraud Investigation Take? The Investigation That Already Ended The federal investigation into your Paycheck Protection Program loan has, in all probability, already concluded its most consequential phase before you became aware it existed. Most business owners who contact a defense attorney with this question are not asking about the future. […]

Received a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) for My EIDL Loan: Now What?

Received a Civil Investigative Demand for My EIDL Loan: Now What? The Government Already Has a Theory A Civil Investigative Demand does not arrive because someone at the Department of Justice is curious. It arrives because a theory has been constructed, evidence has been gathered to support that theory, and what remains is confirmation. The […]

Can I Talk to the SBA Inspector General Without an Attorney?

Can I Talk to the SBA Inspector General Without an Attorney? You can. The question is whether you should, and the answer, in the overwhelming majority of circumstances, is no. The SBA Office of Inspector General does not telephone a business owner to discuss a misunderstanding. By the time an OIG special agent contacts you, […]

Immigration Detention: Your Rights When Arrested by ICE

Immigration Detention: Your Rights When Arrested by ICE The right that matters most during an encounter with ICE is the one most people surrender before they comprehend that they possess it. Silence. Not the performed silence of someone who has been coached but the constitutional variety, the Fifth Amendment protection that applies to every person […]

Backdated Documents for PPP Application: Legal Consequences

Backdated Documents for PPP Applications: Legal Consequences The Document That Confesses for You A backdated document is not a lie told to a lender. It is a confession preserved in a file, addressed to a prosecutor you have not yet met, sealed with metadata you did not know existed. The business owner who alters a […]

Federal Immunity Agreements: Use and Derivative Use Immunity

Federal Immunity Agreements: Use and Derivative Use Immunity The Protection That Permits Prosecution The immunity agreement is the federal government’s most effective instrument for compelling testimony it could not otherwise obtain, and its most reliable method for preserving the right to prosecute the very person who provides it. One does not exclude the other. That […]

Federal Sex Crime Conspiracy Charges: Enterprise Prosecutions

Federal Sex Crime Conspiracy Charges: Enterprise Prosecutions The Enterprise That Was Not The most consequential sex trafficking prosecution in recent federal history concluded last July with an acquittal on the charges that mattered most. Sean Combs was cleared of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. He was convicted of two counts […]

Honest Mistake vs. Fraud: Building Your Defense

Honest Mistake vs. Fraud: Building Your Defense What Prosecutors Believe Before You Speak Every fraud prosecution is, at its foundation, a story about what the defendant understood and when the understanding arrived. The facts matter. The timeline matters. But the federal government does not charge people for making errors on a form or misreading a […]

Can a Target Letter Be Avoided? Early Intervention Strategies

Can a Target Letter Be Avoided? Early Intervention Strategies The Letter Was Never the Beginning The federal investigation concluded months before the envelope arrived. Or, if we are being precise, it concluded in the sense that mattered: the government had already fashioned its theory, assembled its witnesses, and reduced whatever you did or did not […]

What Is a Federal Target Letter and Why Did I Get One?

What Is a Federal Target Letter and Why Did I Get One? The Letter Most People Never Receive Most individuals the federal government indicts are never told it is coming. The letter in your possession is, in that respect, an anomaly. No provision of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure compels a prosecutor to inform […]

Federal Grand Jury Subpoena: Responding to Testimony Demands

The subpoena does not ask whether you are willing. That distinction is the first one most recipients fail to grasp, and it governs everything that follows. A federal grand jury subpoena arrives without warning and without regard for the recipient’s calendar, emotional state, or understanding of what a grand jury does. The document itself is […]

Federal Insider Trading Defense: SEC Enforcement and Criminal Charges

Federal Insider Trading Defense: SEC Enforcement and Criminal Charges The Charge That Arrives Twice Insider trading is prosecuted as two proceedings against the same person for the same conduct. The SEC constructs the civil case. The Department of Justice, working from the same trading data and often the same witness testimony, constructs the criminal one. […]

I Received an FBI Target Letter — What Should I Do Now?

I Received an FBI Target Letter: What Should I Do Now? A federal target letter is the government’s admission that it does not yet possess what it needs to prosecute you. That distinction, between what the government believes and what the government can prove, is the only space in which a defense can be constructed […]

Is My Phone Wiretapped?

Is My Phone Wiretapped? The person most likely to surveil your phone is someone you know. Not a federal agent in an operations room, not an intelligence analyst reviewing your metadata for patterns of interest, but a spouse, a former partner, a business associate who remembered your iCloud password from a quieter time. The question […]

What Should I Do When the DEA Shows Up at My Pharmacy?

What Should I Do When the DEA Shows Up at My Pharmacy? The Piece of Paper That Ends Careers The form they present you is not an invitation. It is DEA Form 82, the Notice of Inspection of Controlled Premises, and the six rights printed on its face are the last constitutional protections you will […]

NYC DEA Defense Lawyers

Los Angeles DEA Defense Lawyers

Los Angeles DEA Defense Lawyers The Crime That Became Terrorism The federal government reclassified your exposure before your case had a docket number. In February 2025, the Secretary of State designated six Mexican drug trafficking organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under Executive Order 14157. The Sinaloa Cartel. Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación. Four others whose […]