Often times the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorneys’ Office will try to wrap every alleged taking of money into a theory of wire fraud. This is where we step in. While it is true that the federal criminal courts have liberally construed criminal statutes governing mail fraud and wire fraud to include other crimes, often times the prosecution tries to stretch it too far. This is where a shrewd and dedicated Criminal Attorney, fighting wire fraud charges, can make a difference. A well pleaded motion to dismiss, assuming the prosecutor has met her discovery demands, can sometimes knock off the top counts from the indictment.
Wire Fraud and mail fraud crime theories have been used by federal prosecutors working with FBI agents and other federal authorities to arrest thousands of individuals alleged to be part of a Ponzi scheme, mortgage fraud, health care fraud, investment fraud, money laundering, larceny and essentially any criminal scheme to take money out of people’s hands by communicating over the mail, telephone or email, etc.
Our White Collar Attorney team devotes a great deal of time to defending our clients against wire fraud charges and the related crimes. Sometimes an aggressive criminal lawyer can convince the prosecutor to drop the charge early on as being too small to pursue. An explanation of this follows.
The United States Department of Justice has disclosed its policy under the Freedom of Information Act. In its disclosure it states that wire fraud and mail fraud prosecutions should only be pursued if the scheme alleged is made up of some individual criminal transactions between people. The criminal transactions should involve significant loss to the victims. Otherwise, the DOJ states that it will typically allow the parties to settle their differences by civil or criminal action in the state courts. In other words, the federal government is not after what it deems to be small fish. The DOJ release goes on to suggest that it will give serious consideration to the prosecution of schemes aimed at committing fraud against the general public. Normally they would be looking for a pattern of criminal conduct designed at defrauding several people out of perhaps small amounts of money. However, if this results in the stealing of a large sum when all the money collected is considered, you will likely be facing federal prosecution for mail fraud and wire fraud.
For an initial consultation, Contact the white collar attorney team at The Blanch Law Firm today by calling 212-736-3900
