White collar crime cases can challenge prosecutors with complexity

On Behalf of | Feb 17, 2015 | White Collar Crime

The point is often made that state and federal law enforcement actors — especially federal agencies and officials — bring overwhelming zeal and clout to their investigations of individuals targeted in white collar criminal probes.

The bottom line in many white collar crime-related stories is often, in fact, that criminal suspects in such investigations scarcely stand a chance, given the tremendous resources — financial, prosecutorial, forensic-related, technology-driven and so forth — brought to bear by teams of agents in integrated task forces. All those resources are centrally focused on one overriding objective: the target’s prosecution, criminal conviction and incarceration.

Much of that oft-told tale is true, since, indeed, state and federal investigators have upped the ante in recent years on white collar criminal probes.

Conversely, though, there is a reciprocal side to that story that is not nearly as widely disseminated.

We discuss it in a white collar crime-focused article on our website at Frank A. Rubino, Esq., entitled, “Could the Complexity of White Collar Crimes Help Defendants?”

We believe it can. In fact, it sometimes turns out to be the case that local law enforcers and legal teams are significantly challenged in their efforts to identify, collect and make sense of evidence in this arcane and singular legal realm. As we state in our article, “Many prosecutors are hard-pressed to understand the complicated financial scenarios involved in some white collar crimes.”

And not only that: If the intricacies of a case can ultimately be understood, that understanding must then be imparted to a jury of lay persons.

And often seated in their midst, as a criminal defendant, is a member of the community with no prior criminal record whatsoever.

There is flat-out complexity inherent in subject matter such as embezzlement, money laundering, health care and mortgage fraud, insider trading and other alleged fraudulent acts.

And proving it — especially when challenged by an experienced defense attorney — can be difficult indeed.

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