By: Sara Kropf I have a Gmail account for personal use. You likely do too. And nearly every one of my clients has one. In fact, Google owns about 43% of the email market. Gmail has about 1.8 billion users and about 306 billion emails are sent and received daily in...
The Government Is Probably Going to Win on the Michael Cohen TRO Motion
By: Sara Kropf The government filed its opposition to Michael Cohen’s motion for a temporary restraining order today. I wrote earlier this week about the search warrant and noted that there would be a court battle coming. Well, here it is. Oddly, the public docket has...
The Government Keeps Trying to Erase Its Wrongdoing
By: Sara Kropf A few months ago, I wrote about the successful effort by a U.S. Attorney’s Office to convince the First Circuit to remove the name of a prosecutor involved in a case about Brady violations. Now, in a case in Philadelphia, a USAO did not ask the district...
Update on the Hedge Fund Founder David Ganek’s Lawsuit Against Preet Bharara
By: Sara Kropf A few weeks ago, I wrote about the lawsuit filed by Level Global founder David Ganek. Mr. Ganek sued Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as well as other prosecutors and agents, claiming that they had harmed...
Fight the Power, Part III: The David Ganek Complaint
By: Sara Kropf In Part I of the series, I introduced the idea that defense counsel are increasingly fighting back against DOJ in creative ways. In Part II, we talked about Sheldon Silver and his defense counsel's efforts to use DOJ's very public statements against Mr....
An Appeals Court Finally Takes a Practical Approach to Sentencing in Government Contracting Case (and an Interesting 4th Amendment Issue)
Loss calculation drives sentencing decisions in many white-collar cases. The higher the loss amount, the longer the sentence.Courts usually take an expansive view of what counts as a “loss” for sentencing. In a recent Third Circuit case, however, the court rejected...
This Shouldn’t Be News: Second Circuit Affirms that Government Needs Warrant to Seize Property
By: Sara Kropf The government's aggressive methods to seize a defendant’s assets before he is convicted of a crime hinders a defendant’s ability to choose—and pay for—his lawyer. A recent Second Circuit case limits the government’s ability to do so. It is based on the...
Great Decision on Loss Amount Calculation in Government Contracting Fraud Case
The calculation of loss amount drives sentencing decisions in many white collar cases. The higher the loss amount, the longer the sentence. Courts always seem to take an expansive view of what counts as a “loss” for sentencing. In a recent Third Circuit case, however,...
The Government Cannot Keep Seized Evidence Forever: Second Circuit Decision on Electronic Data
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...