By Sara Kropf I would guess that most people have a basic understanding of what it means to commit murder or kidnap someone or sell illegal drugs. Yes, some lawyer is dying to tell me how people don’t really understand malice aforethought, but you get my point. Many...
By: Sara Kropf On January 17, 2019, BuzzFeed reported that “President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an...
By: Sara Kropf A defendant has a constitutional right to prepare a defense to criminal charges. In a white-collar case, contacting potential witnesses is as important as reviewing the document trail. Why does the government feel threatened when we do our jobs? I have...
By: Sara Kropf There has been a lot of talk in the media recently about obstruction of justice. Obstruction of justice is a fascinating topic, to be sure. But whether the President of the United States obstructed justice when he fired the Director of the FBI is not...
By: Sara Kropf I recently participated on a panel at the excellent NACDL White Collar Defense College with Ellen Brotman, Preston Pugh, Brian Bieber and Cynthia Orr. The College aims to teach lawyers how to handle white-collar cases from start to finish. We were...
By: Sara Kropf I previously posted about an interesting case involving the Eleventh Circuit’s interpretation of one of the public bribery statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 666. Well, the Eleventh Circuit is at it again. This time, it didn’t turn out as well for the defendant. In...
By: Sara Kropf One of the first things I tell a potential client in a criminal case is not to delete anything from his computer. I explain that DOJ will turn deleting an email or two into an obstruction of justice charge. The client will nod and say he understands....
Sometimes, the good guys win. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a tragedy. The explosion was deadly and the resulting environmental harm was devastating. The government’s response was typical: let’s find some people to prosecute. One of the unlucky targets of the...
By: Sara Kropf Deflategate is a riveting story. In this corner: a star quarterback who may have cheated in a playoff game. In the other corner: a despised NFL commissioner flexing his disciplinary muscle by upholding the QB's four-game suspension. What's turned out to...
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...