# You think you're under investigation So, nothing has happened yet. That is the most important sentence on this page, and it means your choices right now matter more than they will at any later point. Read this first **I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.** This is what the process looks like and how to find someone who can actually help. Everything here points to a public source you can check. My [conflicts and limits](/disclaimer) are on their own page. ## Right now, today — Four things, in this order 1. **Shut the fuck up** To coworkers, friends, family, the internet, or anyone in the same situation. There is no privilege protecting those conversations and every one of those people can be subpoenaed. And they do. 2. **Do not delete anything** Not emails, texts, files, photos, cloud storage, or accounts. This is the single most common way people turn a survivable case into a bad one. 3. **Get a federal criminal defense lawyer before you speak to anyone official** Not a business lawyer. Not a state criminal lawyer. The specifics are further down. 4. **If agents contact you, you're busy bathing your cat and don't have time to answer questions** Say so out loud rather than going quiet. Details below. That's pretty much it. More details below. ## The signals — How you'd know Investigations are usually quiet for a long time. Mine was six months. The common signals: - A target letter (A letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office telling you that prosecutors consider you a putative defendant. It is not a charge, and it is not nothing.) or subject letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office - A grand jury subpoena — to you, or to your bank, employer, or accountant - Agents showing up at your home or workplace, often early morning, often in pairs - Your bank, employer, or a vendor tells you they received a subpoena for your records - Coworkers or associates mention being interviewed - A search warrant executed anywhere connected to you - Accounts frozen or seized You may also have heard nothing and simply suspect it. That happens, and it is not paranoia — most federal investigations run for a long time before the subject learns anything. ## The three words — Target, subject, witness DOJ uses these terms specifically, and they are defined in the Justice Manual at 9-11.151. - **Target** — substantial evidence links you to a crime and prosecutors consider you a putative defendant. - **Subject** — your conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation. - **Witness** — you have information they want. These are not fixed. People move between them in both directions. A lawyer can often find out which one you are, which is one of the more valuable early things they do. ## The knock — If agents come to the door They may be polite. They may say they just want to clear something up, that this is your chance to tell your side, that it will go better if you cooperate now. **You are not required to speak to them.** But say it out loud rather than going silent. Bare silence before an arrest is not automatically protected — in _Salinas v. Texas_ the Supreme Court allowed a prosecutor to use a suspect's silence against him because he never actually said he was refusing. Refusing is protected. Going quiet is not the same thing. What to say, roughly verbatim "I'm not going to answer questions without my lawyer. Can I have your card?" Then stop. Do not explain why. Do not add context. Do not correct something they said. A few things worth knowing: - **Agents are permitted to lie to you.** They can misstate what evidence they have, what others have said, and what happens next. - **You cannot lie to them.** A false statement to a federal agent is its own felony under 18 U.S.C. 1001, punishable independently of whatever they were investigating. People have gone to prison for the interview and nothing else. - **Do not consent to a search.** If they have a warrant they do not need consent. Ask to see it, do not interfere, and note what they take. - **Do not hand over your phone or passcode** without talking to a lawyer. - Write down everything you remember afterward: who, when, what was asked. If someone you know approaches you and steers the conversation toward what happened, assume it is recorded. This is ordinary and it is common. ## The worst mistake — The obstruction trap Read this part twice. The most damaging thing people do at this stage is try to clean up. Deleting emails. Wiping a phone. Shredding files. Calling a coworker to make sure your accounts match. Every one of those is potentially a separate, provable federal crime — obstruction, evidence tampering, conspiracy — and they share three qualities that make them catastrophic: - They are **easier to prove** than the underlying offense. - They happen **after** you knew, which destroys any argument you did not understand what you were doing. - They **add to the sentence** rather than replacing it. Preserve everything. If your lawyer wants something handled, they will tell you. Do not "get your story straight" with anyone. That phrase describes a conspiracy. ## Counsel — Finding the right lawyer You want a **federal criminal defense attorney with white collar experience in the district investigating you.** That is three specific requirements and each one matters. Not who you want: - A business or corporate lawyer - A state criminal lawyer who does not practice in federal court - A general practitioner - Anyone who found you first Where to look: - **NACDL** (National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers) has a public directory searchable by practice area and location. - **Your state or city bar association** white collar or criminal law section. - **Ask a lawyer you already trust** for a referral, even if they practice something unrelated. Lawyers know who the good federal defense attorneys are. - **Former AUSAs** from the district investigating you. They're expensive and a premium. But they know the office, sometimes the specific prosecutor, and how that office makes decisions. - Look at who handled recent similar cases in that district. Federal dockets are public through PACER (the public federal court records system). Questions to ask when you interview them: 1. How much of your practice is federal criminal defense? 2. Have you handled cases in this district, against this office? 3. Have you taken a case to trial? When? 4. What would you do in the first thirty days? 5. What is your fee structure, and what does it cover? 6. Who will actually be doing the work? 7. Have you ever gotten a declination (A decision by the prosecutor not to bring charges at all.) pre-indictment? Interview more than one. You are about to hand someone the next several years of your life. ## Money — What it costs The answer is money. Pre-indictment representation in a federal white collar matter typically runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, and complex cases go well beyond that. Fee structures vary — flat fees by phase, hourly with a retainer, or staged. The hard part: **you are not eligible for a public defender until you are charged.** Federal defenders are appointed after indictment for people who qualify financially. The pre-indictment window, which is when a lawyer can do the most good, is the window with no public option. If money is the constraint, still call. Ask about limited-scope representation for the immediate crisis, payment structures, or a consultation to at least get oriented. Some attorneys will do a reduced-scope engagement to handle contact with the government. That is worth far more than nothing. And if you end up with an appointed federal defender later, understand that many of them are excellent. Do not assume otherwise. ## The leverage — What a lawyer can actually do before charges This is why the timing matters. Before an indictment, defense counsel has leverage they will never have again. - **Find out where you stand.** Contact the AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney. The federal prosecutor assigned to the case.), determine whether you are a target, subject, or witness, and learn what the office is looking at. - **Stop the interviews.** Once you are represented, agents are supposed to go through counsel. - **Argue for declination.** A written submission to the prosecutor arguing that charges should not be brought at all. This works more often than people think and it is only possible before the decision is made. - **Negotiate pre-indictment.** Resolutions reached before charges are often better than what is available after. - **Arrange self-surrender (reporting to prison on your own)** rather than an arrest, if it comes to that. - **Manage a proffer (A sit-down where you tell the government what you know under a limited agreement about how your words can be used. The protections are narrower than people assume.)**, if one is ever appropriate. Never do this without counsel. - **Keep you out of the obstruction trap,** which alone can be worth the fee. ## One common case — About wire and mail fraud specifically Wire fraud is 18 U.S.C. 1343. Mail fraud is 18 U.S.C. 1341. They are the same offense in different clothes, distinguished by whether the scheme used wires or the mail. Prosecutors like these statutes because they are broad. Nearly any modern transaction touches a wire, which makes the jurisdictional element easy and the statutes flexible. Things worth understanding: - **The statutory maximum is 20 years per count,** rising to 30 where a financial institution is affected. Statutory maximums are not what people actually receive. - **Loss amount drives the guidelines** more than any other factor. How loss is calculated is genuinely contestable, and it is one of the most important things a defense lawyer fights about. - **These charges rarely travel alone.** Conspiracy, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft commonly ride along. That last one, 18 U.S.C. 1028A, carries a mandatory two years consecutive to everything else, which makes it a serious escalation. - **The statute of limitations is generally five years,** extending to ten where a financial institution is involved. Do not try to assess your own guideline range from a chart on the internet. It will be wrong in a direction that either terrifies you or lulls you. ## The long part — The waiting Federal investigations take a long time. Two years is unremarkable. Silence does not mean it ended, and it does not mean it is coming. It usually means nothing at all. Some things that help: - Let your lawyer hold the anxiety. That is part of what you are paying for. - Keep working, keep your income, keep your health insurance. - Do not make large financial moves that could be characterized as hiding assets. - Do not discuss the case with anyone except your attorney. Spousal privilege exists but is narrower than people assume. - Get a therapist. This is a long stretch of not knowing, and it wrecks people who try to white-knuckle it. Some investigations end with nothing. You will probably never be told that it did. ## The honest part — What I can't help you with I have been through the federal system and I write about what happens after charges — the process, designation, doing time, and coming home. **This stage is not that, and you should not pay me or anyone like me for it right now.** What you need is a lawyer, and the money you have should go to one. If it gets to the point where charges are filed and you are looking at what comes next, [the rest of this site](/going-to-federal-prison) is there. I hope you never need it.