Federal Criminal Defense Victories During the Past Year

Well readers, 2020 is coming to a close for this lawyer who specializes in defending against federal criminal investigations and prosecutions in Atlanta, down in Savannah, over in Augusta, the remainder of Georgia, and anywhere else in the country the my clients need for me to go.   As we ponder this difficult year, I am thankful and grateful for the cases we resolved this past year that led to positive results for some of our clients.

In January our work filing and pressing a Motion to Suppress led to the complete dismissal of all charges against our client.

Relying on the tips for using pretrial evidentiary hearings as a tool, we got a client’s case resolved when the Judge imposed the lowest possible sentence.

The COVID pandemic is horrible, especially for incarcerated people.  About the only good news is that I learned that my letters, calls and other efforts led the Bureau of Prisons to release one of my favorite clients.  He is now at home with his family.

The pandemic also led to a glut of investigations and prosecutions for supposed COVID-based fraud.  Some of the investigations were warranted, many were not, as I described earlier. In one memorable matter, prosecutors came after my client and his company, claiming fraud.  For a variety of reasons we let the company and the client plead guilty to a strict liability misdemeanor, meaning that there was no proof that the Defendant intended to break the law.  It was especially pleasing to see the Judge reject an effort to impose a jail sentence, and the Court simply placed the client on a short term of probation.

In another COVID-related matter, the client’s name was blasted all over the internet.  After a lot of work, we demonstrated that the investigators and prosecutors had much of the case wrong.  You guessed it, same result, plea of guilty to a misdemeanor crime that did not require proof the Defendant knew she did anything wrong, and she had to pay $654.

Toward the end of the year we had a partial win in the Court of Appeals, reversing 35-years of bad law in Anti-Kickback Act cases.  We are still trying to get the entire Court to rehear the case, in order to solidify the law and get relief for our client, but I was grateful to see that the Judges at least agreed with us on the basic legal principle at the heart of the matter.

This has been a very hard year for so many people.  Me and my family have been fortunate, and our thoughts and prayers to out to those in need.  I am grateful to have been able to help many of my clients.