By: Andrea Moseley Your company applied for money under the terms of the CARES Act: Are you at risk of facing scrutiny from DoJ because of your application? To understand the answer to this question, you must be aware of DoJ's fleet-footed approach to snuffing out...
Trends Emerge in the Defense and Prosecution of COVID-19 Related Fraud.
By Andrea L. Moseley As expected, fraud relating to the present COVID-19 pandemic is being prosecuted for the first time. These crimes of opportunity were predictable and the Department of Justice has come to the table, loaded for bear. Now, our white collar defense...
Must Read Article on “Flipping the Conspiracy Script” on the Government in Conspiracy Cases
Blog Post by Andrea L. Moseley This week the Grand Jury Target authors want to make sure you read an article about the law of conspiracy that is hot off the press. You do not want to miss this timely article that lays out valuable defense strategies against the...
Winning the Hard Way
By: Sara Kropf The hardest appeal to win is one based on insufficiency of the evidence. It argues that “the jury got it wrong.” Courts of appeal do not look kindly upon this argument, not only because it forces the court to dig deep into the record but because it asks...
March Madness: Drafting Error Leads to Dismissal of Criminal Charges against FedEx
By: Sara Kropf Middle Tennessee State beats Michigan State. Yale beats Baylor. The Cinderella season is upon us. The next big winner is . . . FedEx. The government has accused FedEx of conspiring with online pharmacies to ship illegal drugs to dealers and addicts. The...
Fetishes, Fantasy and the Limits of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
By: Sara Kropf It’s a common scenario: a company thinks an employee is using its computers to do something wrong. Maybe the employee is stealing clients for a new venture, copying data from proprietary research or leaking documents to the media about the CEO's...
A Brady Win for a Defendant–Finally (and Some Tips to Get Brady Material)
By: Sara Kropf The conviction and sentence of a man in California were recently vacated when it was discovered that the government had improperly withheld exculpatory material from his defense team at trial. We read a lot of stories about the failures of Brady v....
The Opening Statement for this Prosecution Writes Itself: The Indictment of Massey Energy CEO
By: Sara Kropf As a general rule, the government does not indict CEOs of big companies. No one really wants to say that out loud—at least on the government’s side of the aisle—but it’s true. It is usually difficult for the government to prove a link between a CEO...
Don’t Mess With . . . the FDIC? A “Real Housewife” and Bank Executives Find Out the Hard Way
By: Sara Kropf You may think of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) as the friendly folks who insure your money at the bank. Or you may think of the FDIC as the regulator that deals with failed banks. You probably do not think of the FDIC as an agency...
Size Matters? CalPERS CEO Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy
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...