By: Sara Kropf If you don’t know what the California Public Employees Retirement System (“CalPERS”) is, you should. It is the second-largest public pension fund in the country. It is responsible for operating the pension benefit system and health care benefit system...
By: Sara Kropf Every few weeks, I review the press releases for the U.S. Attorneys' Offices across the country. In the blur of stories about drug busts and indictments for low-level health care fraud, sometimes a name sounds familiar. No, not because it’s a friend. Or...
By: Sara Kropf Some issues in white collar criminal defense arise over and over. I’ll periodically post Resource Guides to cover those issues. Feel free to suggest other Resource Guide topics in the comments. Click here for a printable version of this statute of...
By: Sara Kropf Greetings, readers The ABA is gathering information for its yearly round-up of the best legal blogs. This is the first year that grandjurytarget.com is eligible, and I'd love to be included on the list. It may not be the road to great riches, but my...
By: Sara Kropf The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to counsel. The Fifth Amendment establishes the grand jury. What happens when the right to counsel conflicts with the grand jury’s role? The grand jury wins. So says the United States Supreme Court in the context...
By: Sara Kropf When the government executes a search warrant in a white-collar case, it may seize documents that are protected by the attorney-client privilege. As I've posted before about this issue, the government will often assert that a “taint team” should review...
By: Sara Kropf On June 25, 2014, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Riley v. California, holding that the government generally cannot conduct a warrantless search of a suspect’s cellphone. The decision was front-page news. Most precedent...
By: Sara Kropf I’ve written about fraud in the entertainment industry before. Last time it was Broadway, this time it’s Hollywood. The government recently indicted four employees of a California-based movie production company, Gigapix Studios Inc. (“Gigapix”), on...
By: Sara Kropf Back in July 2013, I wrote a post about two executives at a medical device company in Austin who had been indicted for health care fraud. On June 2, 2014, after a four-week trial, the two men were found guilty by a jury in the Western District of Texas....
By: Sara Kropf A few months ago, I posted about a trade secrets prosecution involving Eli Lilly employees. There have been some interesting developments over the last few months. In 2013, the government accused Guoqing Cao and Shuyu Li of stealing trade secrets from...