Confidential Informant Wearing Wires

Last Updated on: 14th November 2025, 04:49 pm

Confidential Informant Wearing Wire

If you’re reading this, someone close to you—someone you trusted—is wearing a wire. Your business partner, your associate, maybe even a friend—they’re working with federal agents right now and recording every single word you say. You’re scared. You’re confused. You don’t know who to trust anymore, who’s safe to talk to. And you’re trying to figure out what to do in the next 24 hours without making this worse, without making everything you built, everything you worked for, collapse around you.

At Spodek Law Group—a second generation criminal defense firm—our attorneys handle federal CI investigations where every recorded word becomes evidence. Managing partner Todd Spodek was the lawyer of Anna Delvey in the Netflix case everyone watched.

What You Already Said

The person you trusted—the one you’ve been talking to for weeks, maybe months—is recording everything you said. Most people don’t realize the damage isn’t the conversations you’re gonna have, it’s the conversations you already had in the past 72 hours before you suspected anything, before your instincts kicked in. Before you knew.

In the first 24 hours after they flip, the CI wears the wire. You got no idea. Your conversations are natural, unguarded. These are the most damaging recordings—because you weren’t being careful.

Hours 25-48, the CI continues. Three, four more conversations building the prosecutor’s case. You’re acting natural due to you don’t suspect anything. By hours 49-72, you notice odd behavior. But the damage is done—six to ten conversations recorded, transcribed, submitted to the AUSA. Done.

By the time you’re googling “confidential informant wearing wire” at 2am, they have 72 hours of recordings. Can’t unring that bell. Those statements—your voice saying things you wish you hadn’t—can’t be walked back, irrespective of what you meant. Federal prosecutors play those recordings for a jury. Your money. Gone.

Your attorney’s first job is assessing damage based off what you said when you thought that person was your friend. Zero idea they were working for the government.

Being Right Gets You Destroyed

You want to confirm your suspicions. You need to know for sure. Maybe you’re thinking about buying one of those detection devices—a Non-Linear Junction Detector that can find hidden electronics, hidden recording devices. Or maybe you want to confront the person directly, pull them aside and ask whether they’re wearing a wire, whether they’re working with the feds.

Don’t. Don’t do any of that.

Attempting to detect a wire or confront a suspected confidential informant—even if you’re absolutely right about your suspicions—creates separate federal charges that carry 10 to 20 years in federal prison, ten to twenty years for being right, which means the very act of protecting yourself becomes the crime they use to destroy you. When you try and detect a wire or confront a suspected CI, federal prosecutors are charging you with Obstruction of Justice under 18 USC 1503—”corruptly endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede” an investigation, that’s the statute they use, that’s what they come after you with, and buying detection equipment online was creating a paper trail showing consciousness of guilt, irrespective of whether you actually committed the underlying crime they’re investigating you for. If you hired the wrong attorney at this stage, your future is in jeopardy due to they haven’t explained how obstruction charges work separate from the underlying investigation, due to they don’t understand federal prosecutors will stack these charges on top of whatever else you’re facing. Different than other cases. This is federal.

Confronting the CI directly? That’s Witness Tampering under 18 USC 1512—attempting to “hinder, delay, or prevent communication to law enforcement,” and the statute doesn’t care if you’re polite about it, doesn’t care if you just ask nicely. Even if you’re right and they are a CI, asking them creates a separate charge that becomes a whole new federal case stacked on top of whatever they’re already investigating you for, which means more prison time, more charges, more damage. Can’t walk it back. Can’t say you didn’t mean it that way. Your attorney has legal tools to investigate quietly—discovery motions, FOIA requests, informal inquiries through AUSA channels—that don’t trigger obstruction charges, tools you don’t have access to, tools regular people can’t use without creating more problems. Our criminal defense lawyers with many, many, years of combined experience are available 24/7 because this decision can’t wait until Monday morning, can’t wait when you’ve already made statements that destroyed your defense, can’t wait when the feds are building their case right now.

You’re RIGHT to be suspicious, your instincts are probably correct and someone IS wearing a wire, someone IS recording you right now, but acting based off that suspicion creates new federal crimes with mandatory minimum sentences, mandatory minimums you can’t negotiate away, can’t plea down, can’t make disappear, irrespective of how good your attorney is. Walking into court, the judge already decided. They’ve been watching you for months. They were investigating and are building their case. And you had no idea. The amount of evidence they have is staggering. They pulled your records and are watching everything you do.

Unlike other law firms who tell you “stay calm,” we’re telling you the brutal reality—being right about a CI can land you in more trouble if you act wrong. As a top firm in NYC, we take this seriously. Every case.

Federal prosecutors don’t care about intentions, they care about actions. Attempting to detect a wire creates charges stacked on top of everything else, irrespective what defense you try and create later. We fight. We win. Not always.

Warning others? If you’re in an organization, that’s Conspiracy to Obstruct under 18 USC 371. Your Fifth Amendment protection gone. Evidence that can’t be suppressed.

Then there’s the electronic surveillance issue. Which nobody tells you about.

Your Phone Was the Wire

By the time a confidential informant wears a physical wire, the FBI and DEA were conducting electronic surveillance for many, many months. Already done.

Months 1-3: pen register under 18 U.S. Code § 2518—capturing who you called, when, how long. Mapping your network. Months 3-6: Title III wiretap. Phone calls recorded. Texts read. Emails monitored. Months 4-6: CI wire deployed as corroboration.

When you discovered someone wearing a wire, you thought: “What did I say to HIM?” But federal agents already have three to six months of phone records, texts, location data. The wire you can see is different than the actual problem. Your phone has been the wire for many, many months. Federal investigators deploy CIs after they got months of surveillance. Assume EVERYTHING is recorded.

Three to five people already flipped. Not just one. Everyone’s talking.

Federal investigations don’t start with wires—they start with arrests and this cooperation-cascade pattern where everyone’s talking to save themselves. In months one and two of the investigation, Person A gets arrested. Within 48 hours—sometimes within 24 hours—they cooperate. They give prosecutors everything: documents, names, organizational charts, bank records, phone records, who does what, who’s in charge. They’ve given prosecutors the complete roadmap based off your organization, the blueprint of how everything works. By months two and three, Persons B and C get brought in for what’s called “proffer sessions”—meetings where they speak to prosecutors and FBI agents. They become cooperators for the government, they sign agreements. Then in months three and four, Person D—the CI you suspect, the one you’re worried about—gets activated to wear a wire. They’re just corroborating what A, B, and C already provided to the government.

You think D is the only one cooperating. Actually A, B, C, and D all flipped already. You’re the last to know, which means your cooperation value—if you decide to cooperate—is worth dirt. Worth almost nothing due to everyone already talked.

Your attorney has legal tools to investigate without creating criminal exposure for you, without triggering new charges. Our attorneys file discovery motions under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16 to force disclosure of the CI’s cooperation agreement—revealing how much prison time they’re facing, how many arrests they need to deliver to get their deal, what restrictions apply to their cooperation under Attorney General Guidelines. If the CI needed “one more arrest” to finalize their deal, that shows extreme motivation they got to lie, to embellish, to make things sound worse than they are. If the CI exceeded their authorization—if they pushed you to do things, if they instigated—recordings may be suppressible, may get thrown out. Maybe.

We investigate quietly. We don’t create new charges for you. We don’t trigger witness tampering accusations, we don’t alert the prosecutors that you’re onto them. Our attorneys were the lawyers for many, many federal CI cases—cases where recordings were suppressed due to unauthorized CI conduct, cases where cooperation agreements revealed the CI was lying to get a better deal, cases where the amount of pressure federal agents put on the CI invalidated their cooperation. Not every case. But enough cases.

Every conversation from this point forward is evidence that gets used against you. Every text message. Every phone call, regardless who you’re talking to, irrespective of what you think is safe. Federal prosecutors are building their case right now. Today.

At Spodek Law Group, our attorneys understand you’re facing a federal investigation where recordings destroy defenses, where your own words become the evidence against you. Managing partner Todd Spodek, a second generation criminal defense attorney—was the lawyer for Anna Delvey in the case that became a Netflix series, the case everyone watched. Featured in NY Post, Newsweek, Fox 5. Over 50 years of combined experience handling federal cases where recordings, CIs, and electronic surveillance get used to service clients nationwide, coast to coast.

Criminal defense attorneys available 24/7—not just business hours. Your next conversation could add 10 years to your sentence. Maybe 20 years if you say the wrong thing. Can’t practice anymore if you’re in prison.

Call us at 212-300-5196.