Note: This article was first published in the ABA's Criminal Justice magazine in Summer 2019. By: Sara Kropf In early February 2019, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos published an explosive blog post accusing the National Enquirer’s owner, American Media Inc. (AMI), of...
By Dan Portnov Last week convicted and newly accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found injured in his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), while awaiting his trial. This came shortly after his attorneys lost their bid to have him freed on bail or,...
By: Sara Kropf In the first post on this topic, I described the basics of Rule 17(c) subpoenas. This post will offer some practical tips to convince a court to issue a subpoena to a third party to obtain documents for your defense. As we described in our earlier post,...
By Dan Portnov Office of Inspector General investigations don’t always make the news. After all, no one ends up in jail or paying back billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains as a result (usually). However, one federal agency’s OIG seems to garner an outsized amount...
By: Sara Kropf During a criminal investigation, the government has nearly unlimited powers to gather evidence against a defendant. It can use grand jury subpoenas—usually with no court oversight unless the recipient objects—for documents or to compel testimony of any...
By Dan Portnov Sometime this summer, perhaps as soon as mid-August, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn will be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. Flynn’s sentencing piques both pro-Trump and anti-Trump interest because he was one of the...
By: Sara Kropf Given the position of the Office of Legal Counsel that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, there has been some talk (including by me) about the possibility of indicting President Trump now but keeping the indictment under seal until he is no...
This post is the eighth in a series of posts for non-lawyers, or non-securities lawyers, who might suddenly find themselves on the wrong end of a Securities and Exchange Commission document request, subpoena or call from Enforcement division staff. By Dan Portnov...
By: Sara Kropf Jury selection as a funny thing. As I’ve said before, it is far more art than science. Most courts have a list of standard questions of the ask every juror during jury selection. One of those questions is whether or not the prospective juror is biased...
By Dan Portnov Last week, the government moved one tiny step closer to being able to “outsource” its criminal investigations to non-DOJ actors. In a post-trial order, Southern District of New York Chief Judge Colleen McMahon excoriated the government for effectively...