By Sara Kropf In a high-profile case in the Eastern District of New York, the Department of Justice has once again shown that it cannot be trusted when it comes to discovery. DOJ recently disclosed that it had failed to give 15,500 pages of emails from its star...
By Sara Kropf A few days ago, the media reported that former President Donald Trump had classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago residence. As of today, the materials are apparently still there. If this were anyone other than the former president, I can pretty much...
By: Jaime Rosenberg A lot happened in the white-collar realm in 2021 and the Biden administration. The Department of Justice outlined a plan to increase its enforcement of white-collar crimes. It’s no surprise, then, that the number of white-collar criminal...
By Sara Kropf This week, the Department of Justice announced that it was dropping charges against MIT professor Gang Chen. It had accused him of hiding his ties to China and indicted him for wire fraud, failing to report a foreign bank account, and making a false...
By Sara Kropf This post is more of a rant than a reasoned analysis of a legal issue in the white collar criminal defense world. There are two phrases that I am tired of hearing a prosecutor say: “Your client needs to have a come to Jesus moment” and “Your client knows...
By Sara Kropf A proffer agreement—or “queen for a day” agreement*—is the shiny fruit tart of the white collar defense world. It looks so lovely and perfect in the bakery window, but after your first bite, you realize that it tastes awful.** Proffer agreements look...
By Andrea L. Moseley The Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (“SIGPR”), Brian D. Miller, recently put out a plea for crypto companies to lend a hand in SIGPR's efforts to combat Pandemic Relief Fraud. At the end of September, SIGPR Miller and his former...
By Jaime Rosenberg The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th riot has asked 35 telecommunications and social media companies to preserve phone records and other information belonging to members of Congress, former President Donald Trump, and members of...
By Sara Kropf Regular readers of this blog (hi Mom!) know that I enjoy it when a court disagrees with the Department of Justice. After all, DOJ usually wins. A federal judge recently told DOJ that it cannot hire a private company (Deloitte) to help process voluminous...
By Sara Kropf As a general matter, there’s no love lost between prosecutors and defense lawyers. But in one very important way, defense lawyers place an incredible amount of trust in prosecutors. When I say there’s no love lost, I don’t mean on a personal level; I’m...