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Federal Sentencing Guidelines for COVID Loan Fraud
Federal Sentencing Guidelines for COVID Loan Fraud The sentence you receive for PPP fraud is not determined by the money you received. It is determined by the money you requested. Under USSG §2B1.1, the federal guideline governing fraud and theft offenses, courts apply the greater of actual loss or intended loss when calculating a defendant’s […]
read moreFINRA Wells Notice Explained
FINRA Wells Notice Explained The Disclosure Obligation The Wells Notice creates a record before it creates a case. For a registered representative, the written confirmation from FINRA that formal disciplinary action is under consideration triggers a Form U4 amendment, which populates BrokerCheck, which becomes visible to clients, prospective employers, and anyone with a browser and […]
read moreHow to Respond to FINRA 8210 Request
How to Respond to a FINRA Rule 8210 Request The letter arrives, and the career you have constructed over a decade or two decades becomes, in a legal sense, conditional. A FINRA Rule 8210 request is not a courtesy. It is a demand issued under authority broad enough to compel your testimony, your documents, and […]
read moreFINRA vs. SEC Investigation
FINRA vs. SEC Investigation: What Securities Professionals Must Understand Before Responding The letter arrives, and the professional who receives it has already lost something, though what exactly depends on decisions that have not yet been made. Whether the envelope contains a FINRA Rule 8210 request or an SEC subpoena, the recipient is now operating inside […]
read moreCan FINRA Bar Me From the Industry?
Can FINRA Bar Me From the Industry? The bar is permanent. Under FINRA Rule 8310 and Section 15A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority possesses the authority to expel an individual from associating with any member firm, in any capacity, without a defined endpoint. A censure fades. A fine […]
read moreWill Cooperating With the Feds Reduce My Sentence?
Will Cooperating With the Feds Reduce My Sentence? Cooperation with federal authorities reduces sentences in roughly the same way that confession reduces guilt: conditionally, incompletely, and only when the institution receiving it determines that the offering was sufficient. The question is not whether cooperation can reduce a federal sentence. It can. Under Section 5K1.1 of […]
read moreCan I Cooperate Without Testifying Against Others?
Can I Cooperate Without Testifying Against Others? The question assumes a binary that does not exist in federal practice. Cooperation is not a single act performed on a single afternoon. It is a range of conduct, graduated by risk, measured by the government’s assessment of what you provided and whether anyone was prosecuted because of […]
read moreWhat If I'm Afraid to Testify Against Co-Defendants?
What If I Am Afraid to Testify Against Co-Defendants? The fear is not irrational. In multi-defendant criminal cases, the decision to cooperate with the government and provide testimony against a co-defendant carries consequences that no proffer agreement fully discloses and no prosecutor fully acknowledges. One does not arrive at this crossroads by accident. The question […]
read moreWhat Happens Inside a Federal Grand Jury Room?
What Happens Inside a Federal Grand Jury Room? The federal grand jury room is the one proceeding in American criminal law where the government speaks and no one is permitted to answer. Sixteen to twenty-three citizens sit in that room for months at a time, hearing case after case, and the person whose liberty is […]
read moreWhat Are SEC Penalties?
What Are SEC Penalties? The penalty is not the point. The penalty is what remains after the Securities and Exchange Commission has already accomplished its actual objective: the investigation, the subpoena, the eighteen months of document production that consumed your general counsel’s calendar and convinced your board that something had gone wrong whether or not […]
read moreCooperation in Federal Drug Conspiracy Cases
Cooperation in Federal Drug Conspiracy Cases The Proffer Session Cooperation in a federal drug conspiracy case begins before the defendant has decided to cooperate. It begins in a room at the United States Attorney’s office, with a proffer agreement on the table and a pair of federal agents who already know most of what the […]
read moreProffer Agreements in Healthcare Fraud Cases
Proffer Agreements in Healthcare Fraud Cases The proffer agreement is the government’s most efficient instrument for converting a defendant into a witness, and in healthcare fraud cases, it operates with a precision that most defendants do not appreciate until the session has concluded. Federal prosecutors do not extend proffer invitations because they are curious about […]
read moreCooperation in RICO and Organized Crime Cases
Cooperation in RICO and Organized Crime Cases The cooperator in a federal RICO prosecution does not exchange information for freedom. The exchange is more intimate and less reversible than that: a former life, dismantled in its entirety, for the possibility of a shorter sentence. Not the certainty. The distinction matters more than most defendants appreciate […]
read moreCooperating in a Federal Fraud Investigation
Cooperating in a Federal Fraud Investigation Cooperation is the single most consequential decision a defendant or target will make in a federal fraud case, and it is almost always made too late or for the wrong reasons. The word itself carries a suggestion of reasonableness, of working together toward resolution. What it means in practice […]
read more18 U.S.C. § 1001: Why Lying to Federal Agents Is a Crime
18 U.S.C. § 1001: Why Lying to Federal Agents Is a Crime The statute that prosecutes lying to federal agents has ended more careers than the crimes it was designed to investigate. Martha Stewart did not go to prison for insider trading. Michael Flynn did not plead guilty to anything involving foreign policy. Both were […]
read moreThe Right to Remain Silent in Federal Investigations
The Right to Remain Silent in Federal Investigations Silence, in a federal investigation, is not a condition one falls into. It is a position one must claim aloud, with precise language, at a precise moment, or it ceases to exist as a constitutional protection at all. The Supreme Court made this clear in Salinas v. […]
read moreHow Long After a Target Letter Will I Be Indicted?
How Long After a Target Letter Will I Be Indicted? The question contains its own misunderstanding. A target letter does not begin a process. It arrives near the conclusion of one. Federal prosecutors do not compose these letters at the outset of an investigation; they compose them after months of evidence collection, witness interviews, subpoena […]
read moreFederal Arson Charges: Federal Property Arson
Federal Arson Charges: Federal Property Arson Five years is the floor. That is the mandatory minimum sentence for federal arson under 18 U.S.C. § 844(f), and it applies whether the fire consumed a federal courthouse or singed a government mailbox in an unattended lot. The statute does not distinguish between the two. The sentencing guidelines […]
read moreFederal Assault on Federal Officer: LEO Assault Charges
Federal Assault on a Federal Officer: What Section 111 Charges Mean and What They Require The charge attaches faster than most defendants expect, and the statute that governs it is broader than its title implies. Under 18 U.S.C. § 111, the federal government prosecutes conduct that ranges from a threatening gesture during a warrant execution […]
read moreChicago Federal Criminal Defense Attorney
Chicago Federal Criminal Defense Attorney The conviction rate in the Northern District of Illinois is not a number that reassures. Federal prosecutors in Chicago proceed with a selectivity that renders the cases they bring close to dispositive by the time an indictment reaches the Dirksen Federal Building on South Dearborn Street. The government does not […]
read moreNew York City Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers
Federal Criminal Defense in New York City The case is not decided at trial. In the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the case is decided in the months before the indictment is unsealed, in a series of conversations that most defendants do not know are occurring until the conversations have already concluded. A […]
read moreFederal Gang Conspiracy Charges: Street Gang Prosecutions
Federal Gang Conspiracy Charges: Street Gang Prosecutions The federal government does not prosecute street gangs the way the public imagines. It constructs conspiracies. What the evening news presents as a coordinated sweep of a criminal organization is, in the courtroom, an exercise in statutory architecture: RICO, VICAR, Pinkerton liability, and the conspiracy provisions of Title […]
read moreGrand Jury Subpoena for PPP Loan Documents: What to Do
Grand Jury Subpoena for PPP Loan Documents: What to Do The subpoena you received is not the beginning of the investigation. It is closer to the end. By the time a federal grand jury issues a subpoena duces tecum for Paycheck Protection Program loan records, prosecutors have already obtained your bank’s copies of everything you […]
read moreWhat Is the Penalty for Lying on a PPP Loan Application?
What Is the Penalty for Lying on a PPP Loan Application? The penalties are federal, they are accumulating, and they have not begun to slow down. In February 2026, a judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania sentenced the last of four defendants in an $11.5 million PPP and EIDL fraud conspiracy to eight years […]
read moreFlorida Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers
Florida Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers The Southern District of Florida convicts at a rate that leaves little room for the underprepared. Across all three federal districts in this state, the government’s resources, its institutional patience, and its willingness to construct cases over years before a single charge is filed distinguish federal prosecution from anything a […]
read moreMoney Laundering Charges for Misusing PPP Funds
Money Laundering Charges for Misusing PPP Funds The fraud charge is not the one that determines the sentence. In case after case, federal prosecutors have demonstrated that the act of spending misappropriated PPP funds, not the act of obtaining them, produces the counts that carry the most severe exposure. A defendant who submitted a single […]
read moreFalse Statements Charge (18 USC 1001) for SBA Loan Fraud
False Statements Charge (18 USC 1001) for SBA Loan Fraud The Interview as Prosecution The charge most likely to attach to your SBA loan case is not the one you are preparing for. Business owners who applied for PPP or EIDL funding between 2020 and 2022 tend to assume their exposure begins and ends with […]
read moreCPA or Loan Preparer Made Errors: Am I Still Liable?
CPA or Loan Preparer Made Errors: Am I Still Liable? The signature on the return is yours. The liability, under federal law, follows the signature, not the hand that prepared the document. This is the answer most people do not wish to receive, and it is the answer that governs every conversation that follows: when […]
read moreHow to Handle an SBA Subpoena for PPP Loan Records
How to Handle an SBA Subpoena for PPP Loan Records Immediate Response to the Subpoena The subpoena is not the beginning of the investigation. It is, in most cases we have encountered, confirmation that the inquiry has been underway for months, conducted under Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, using records your […]
read moreI Was Served a Federal Grand Jury Subpoena — Now What?
I Was Served a Federal Grand Jury Subpoena: Now What A federal grand jury subpoena is the one document in American law that compels your presence, your testimony, and whatever records the government has described in terms broad enough to ensure you cannot determine what falls outside the scope. It arrives without explanation. The sealed […]
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