White Collar Crime & Government Investigations
Overview
Carlton Fields represents corporations and executives in all aspects of white collar criminal matters and complex civil cases involving allegations of criminal conduct or similar wrongdoing. Our work spans everything from designing compliance programs and conducting internal investigations to defending clients in regulatory or grand jury investigations and at criminal trials. We have significant experience in the areas of business, tax, and securities fraud; trade secret theft; money laundering; Medicare and Medicaid fraud; bank fraud; forfeiture matters; and immigration crimes. We haves successfully resolved matters with quiet, discrete settlements and with aggressive, full-throated defenses at trial.
Our team, which includes more than 10 lawyers with high-level experience as assistant U.S. attorneys, assistant state attorneys, and federal and state public defenders, has tried hundreds of criminal cases to judgment in bench and jury trials.
We regularly:
Our team, which includes more than 10 lawyers with high-level experience as assistant U.S. attorneys, assistant state attorneys, and federal and state public defenders, has tried hundreds of criminal cases to judgment in bench and jury trials.
We regularly:
- Defend clients accused of crimes at trial.
- Defend during grand jury and other government investigations.
- Defend clients charged with crimes or targeted in civil enforcement actions.
- Counsel clients before federal and state courts and agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Conduct internal investigations for individual and corporate clients, rooting out fraud and abuse and helping them design compliance, prevention, and detection programs.
- Represent individuals and businesses victimized by crime, presenting to both federal and state authorities clients for possible criminal prosecution.
Offers clients wide-ranging litigation expertise across both civil and white-collar crime issues. Held in high regard for its criminal defense and government investigations work and excels in an array of areas including healthcare, tax and securities fraud cases.
Experience
- Acquittal of military and law enforcement equipment industry executive after a three-month trial related to the accusation that 22 industry executives conspired to bribe the defense minister of Gabon to win contracts to provide body armor, weapons, and military gear in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This case was the largest prosecution of individuals under the FCPA since the Department of Justice began enforcing the act. It marked the first large-scale use of undercover tactics in an FCPA case.
- Acquittal after a one-week jury trial of a Colombian seaman accused in Operation Panama Express of importing cocaine into the United States.
- Acquittal after nonjury trial of health care lawyer on indirect criminal contempt charges.
- Acquittal, following a four-week federal jury trial, of a target of a two-year-plus international marine hose investigation brought by the Department of Justice.
- Acquittal, following a six-week federal jury trial, of attorney and senior aide to the then-governor of Puerto Rico, whom the Department of Justice charged in two indictments alleging various tax fraud and public corruption violations.
- Dismissal of a federal criminal indictment charging mail and wire fraud related to alleged boiler room operation, following a two-week federal jury trial that resulted in a hung jury.
- Dismissal, before trial, of an indictment charging tax law violations.
- Unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning client’s conviction for honest-services fraud for actions taken when he was a private citizen serving as a campaign manager, not a public official. The Supreme Court rejected the theory that all private citizens with mere influence or de facto control over government decisions owe a fiduciary duty to the public. It held that such a rule was too vague, and could encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.
- Represented two federal air marshals who fatally wounded a passenger who claimed to have a bomb on a commercial airline flight at Miami International Airport. This case represents the only instance in which a federal marshal discharged a firearm in the line of duty (no criminal charges filed).
- Represented executives after more than three years of investigation by the Federal Drug Administration and the Department of Justice into off-label use of medical devices (no criminal charges filed).
- Represented the founder and CEO of a public technology company after more than two years of investigation by the Department of Justice into possible FCPA violations (no criminal charges filed).
- Acquittal of quality control executive following a 10-week federal jury trial on charges of conspiracy, fraud, and theft regarding the importation of mislabeled shrimp in a case brought by the Federal Drug Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection; co-defendants convicted at the same trial.
- Represented health care executive in a three-year antitrust investigation conducted by the Department of Justice criminal antitrust division (no criminal charges filed).
- Conducted internal investigation at the request of the parent company of a major Florida public utility in response to anonymous allegations that managers were providing false information to state regulators in a high-profile rate case.
- Dismissal of federal criminal indictment relating to alleged mortgage fraud conspiracy following a five-month trial that ended in a hung jury that voted 10-2 for acquittal.
- Multiple representations of executives in SEC investigations involving fields such as banking, finance, telemarketing, and manufacturing (no enforcement actions or criminal securities charges brought).
- Negotiated resolution of probation and home confinement for pharmacist in large oxycodone distribution conspiracy, when the application of the federal sentencing guidelines called for a much more severe result.
