White Collar

  • August 23, 2024

    Intended Financial Harm Counts In Sentencing, 4th Circ. Says

    A split Fourth Circuit panel on Friday upheld a South Carolina woman's 30-month sentence for filing false tax returns and making false statements on applications for Paycheck Protection Program loans, finding that a sentencing range can be calculated using the total amount of intended financial harm.

  • August 23, 2024

    Latino Group Seeks Inquiry Into AG Paxton's Voter Fraud Raids

    The Texas arm of the League of United Latin American Citizens is calling for a federal investigation into reports of "police state tactics" used by the Texas attorney general's office during its investigation of voter fraud.

  • August 23, 2024

    Mich. Atty Guilty Of Murdering Client Faces Disbarment

    The Michigan Supreme Court's prosecutorial arm on Friday urged the state's attorney watchdog to disbar a lawyer who was sentenced to spend life in prison for conspiring to kill his wealthy client to gain access to the client's trust, saying the attorney's conduct was "heinous and reprehensible."

  • August 23, 2024

    Former NY Atty Gets Prison For Theft Of $800K From Clients

    A disbarred New York real estate attorney has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution for stealing over $800,000 from three former clients by taking their money from his escrow account.

  • August 23, 2024

    Georgia Cases To Watch In The Last Half Of 2024

    The prosecutions of former President Donald Trump and his election interference case codefendants, along with Atlanta rapper Young Thug's bid to have the judge overseeing his racketeering trial removed from the case, will take center stage in Georgia's courts as we enter the second half of 2024.

  • August 23, 2024

    On Final Night Of DNC, Prosecutors Ruled The Stage

    Vice President Kamala Harris invoked her experience as a prosecutor and an attorney general in her speech Thursday night in Chicago accepting the Democratic nomination for president.

  • August 23, 2024

    Cape Cod Bookkeeper To Cop To $1.3M Embezzlement

    The longtime bookkeeper of a Cape Cod flooring business has agreed to plead guilty to embezzling more than $1.3 million from the company, Massachusetts federal prosecutors announced.

  • August 22, 2024

    Panel Backs Sex Misconduct Findings About Ex-Alaska Judge

    A judicial conference review panel affirmed Thursday the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council's finding that former U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred of the District of Alaska had an "inappropriately sexualized relationship" with a law clerk and created a hostile work environment.

  • August 22, 2024

    5th Circ. Says No Tolling For COVID, Trims Atty's Conviction

    The Fifth Circuit on Thursday knocked a false statement charge off Houston attorney Richard Plezia's conviction for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar ambulance-chasing kickback scheme but upheld the rest of his conviction, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by helping another lawyer evade federal income taxes.

  • August 22, 2024

    3rd Circ. Denies Liberian Bank Whistleblower's Asylum Bid

    The Third Circuit ruled Thursday that a Liberian man can't claim asylum despite having "suffered horrors" after unearthing a fraud scheme involving Liberian government officials' relatives and refusing a politician's bribe, saying he did not show evidence that his alleged perpetrators targeted him for having an anti-corruption political opinion.

  • August 22, 2024

    Philly Contractor Gets Probation For Taking Union Money

    A Philadelphia contractor who accepted union money embezzled by John Dougherty, former business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, to renovate the labor leader's personal properties was sentenced to three years of probation Thursday.

  • August 22, 2024

    Debtors Claim $3M Award Is Tainted By Fraud In China

    Two Chinese debtors said to owe nearly $3 million under an arbitral award issued to an investment company in the People's Republic of China have asked a California federal court to vacate an order enforcing the award earlier this year, saying the company participated in criminal fraud.

  • August 22, 2024

    Feds Seize $5M In Crypto 'Pig Butchering' Scams

    Federal prosecutors in North Carolina snagged nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency that they said on Thursday came from crooks masquerading as lovers, luring starry-eyed paramores into phony investments, in what's known as a "pig butchering" scam.

  • August 22, 2024

    Ex-MiMedx Sales Rep Says Fraud Schemes Pushed Her Out

    A former employee of controversial biotech firm MiMedx who was sued for joining a competitor earlier this year hit the company back with a counterclaim Tuesday charging that she was forced out for refusing to go along with the company's alleged flouting of U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations and rampant overbilling schemes.

  • August 22, 2024

    Ex-Morgan Stanley Representative Concedes SEC Suit

    A former Morgan Stanley representative who was criminally convicted in a $4.8 million Ponzi scheme has conceded in a suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he agrees with the agency that judgment should be issued against him.

  • August 22, 2024

    Smuggling Suspect Arrested Over '22 Migrant Deaths In Texas

    A Guatemalan national was arrested Wednesday in his home country at U.S. officials' request for his alleged role in a human smuggling operation blamed for the deaths of 53 migrants who were found in a tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

  • August 22, 2024

    Feds Ask For $395M Forfeiture In Bitcoin Fog Case

    A D.C. federal judge said he was inclined to side with prosecutors seeking a $395 million forfeiture order for convicted Bitcoin Fog operator Roman Sterlingov, at least as a preliminary step ahead of the 35-year-old's sentencing for money laundering.

  • August 22, 2024

    Feds, Ex-Detroit Mayor Spar Over Restitution, Residency

    Federal prosecutors and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick are clashing over restitution, with the feds seeking to collect some $6,700 the Michigan Department of Treasury uncovered and Kilpatrick claiming the money is off limits, challenging how much he owes and pushing to have the case sent to Georgia.

  • August 22, 2024

    Nadine Menendez's Bribery Trial Delayed Until 2025

    The bribery trial of former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's wife is delayed until at least January because she is being treated for cancer, a New York federal judge ruled Thursday.

  • August 22, 2024

    NY AG Tells Appeals Court To Uphold $465M Trump Judgment

    Donald Trump has barely challenged the extensive proof of financial statement lies undergirding a $465 million civil fraud judgment against him and his co-defendants, New York's attorney general said in an appeals brief looking to preserve the bench verdict.

  • August 22, 2024

    Feds Accuse NYC Man Of Acting As Chinese Agent

    Manhattan federal prosecutors have accused a naturalized U.S. citizen of acting as an agent of the People's Republic of China and relaying intelligence to the Chinese government.

  • August 22, 2024

    Tom Girardi Takes The Stand In His Criminal Fraud Trial

    Disbarred attorney Tom Girardi took the stand Thursday in his California federal fraud trial and denied stealing from any of his clients, while also showing a strong grasp of past events and people but claiming to have no memory of the trial's witnesses and key moments, or to even know his own lawyer's name.

  • August 22, 2024

    Insurer, Atty Drop Case Linked To Bogus Check Scheme

    An insurance firm has agreed to drop its claim seeking a declaration from a Washington federal court that it is not on the hook to cover a Seattle-area solo practitioner over an alleged counterfeit check scheme, after the bank and attorney settled their underlying dispute.

  • August 22, 2024

    Army Adviser Gets 12 Years For Scamming Gold Star Families

    A former New Jersey financial counselor with the U.S. Army and a major in the U.S. Army Reserve was sentenced to 151 months in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding Gold Star families and other related crimes, the U.S. attorney's office announced.

  • August 22, 2024

    Mike Lynch's Path From Tech Founder To DOJ Target

    Friends and colleagues paid tribute to Mike Lynch following his death in a yachting accident on Thursday, hailing the British tech entrepreneur for the decades he spent furthering the industry despite the legal troubles that threatened to overshadow his career.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • Series

    After Chevron: No Deference, No Difference For SEC Or CFTC

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    The Chevron doctrine did not fundamentally alter the interplay between the courts and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the development of the securities and commodities laws — and its demise will not do so either, says Dan Berkovitz at Millennium Management.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • Justices' Bribery Ruling: A Corrupt Act Isn't Necessarily Illegal

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    In its Snyder v. U.S. decision last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a bribery law does not criminalize gratuities, continuing a trend of narrowing federal anti-corruption laws and scrutinizing public corruption prosecutions that go beyond obvious quid pro quo schemes, say Carrie Cohen and Christine Wong at MoFo.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Roundup

    After Chevron

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    In the month since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 26 different rulemaking and litigation areas.

  • Key Takeaways From High Court's Substitute Expert Decision

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Smith v. Arizona decision, holding that the confrontation clause generally bars prosecutors’ use of a substitute expert witness at trial, will have the most impact in narcotics and violent crime cases, but creative defense lawyers may find it useful in white collar cases, too, say Joshua Naftalis and Melissa Kelley at Pallas Partners.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • Proposed Customer ID Rule Could Cost Investment Advisers

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    A rule recently proposed by FinCEN and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to make financial advisers collect more customer information parallels an anti-money laundering and counterterrorism rule proposed this spring, but firms may face new compliance costs when implementing these screening programs, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Perspectives

    High Court Ruling Leaves Chance For Civil Forfeiture Reform

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    Though advocates for civil forfeiture reform did not prevail in Culley v. Marshall last month, concerns voiced by a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court justices potentially leave the door open to consider stricter limits in future cases, say attorneys at Dykema.

  • How Cannabis Rescheduling May Affect Current Operators

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    The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's proposal to reschedule marijuana to Schedule III provides relief in the form of federal policy from the stigma and burdens of Schedule I, but commercial cannabis operations will remain unchanged until the federal-state cannabis policy gap is remedied by Congress, say Meital Manzuri and Alexis Lazzeri at Manzuri Law.

  • Series

    Skiing And Surfing Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I’ve learned while riding waves in the ocean and slopes in the mountains have translated to my legal career — developing strong mentor relationships, remaining calm in difficult situations, and being prepared and able to move to a backup plan when needed, says Brian Claassen at Knobbe Martens.

  • Unpacking The Circuit Split Over A Federal Atty Fee Rule

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    Federal circuit courts that have addressed Rule 41(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are split as to whether attorney fees are included as part of the costs of a previously dismissed action, so practitioners aiming to recover or avoid fees should tailor arguments to the appropriate court, says Joseph Myles and Lionel Lavenue at Finnegan.

  • In Biz Account Breaches, Look Beyond The Payment Platform

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    A business's legal path to recovering funds after bad actors access a payment platform account and engage in unauthorized transactions can lead into murky legal territory where liability is unclear, and pursuing the payment platform itself will be an uphill, if not insurmountable, struggle, say Edward Marshall and Morgan Harrison at Arnall Golden.

  • Justices' 'Blind Mule' Ruling Won't Change Defense Strategy

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week in Diaz v. U.S., holding that expert witnesses can testify broadly about the mental state of “most people” in a group, simply affirms the status quo for the majority of defendants, and is unlikely to change defense counsel’s strategy at trial, says Walter Gonçalves at the Arizona Federal Public Defender's Office.

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