On behalf of Rosenblum Schwartz & Fry posted in White Collar Crimes on Friday, September 21, 2018.
The complexities surrounding an incident in which a confirmed violent person sticks a gun in a bank teller’s face in front of a crowd and demands money might be, well, absent.
That certainty attached to behavior and a criminal offense is not similarly apparent concerning many so-called white collar crimes.
Indeed, we note on our website at the established St. Louis criminal defense law firm of Rosenblum Schwartz & Fry that, “Individuals who are accused of white collar crime rarely set out to break the law.” Their alleged wrongdoing can often result from their confusion or simple mistake made concerning a muddied financial matter. Convicted offenders are often mid-level company employees who commanded only a partial understanding of a multi-layered transaction.
Take the case of George Papadopoulos, a former mid-level presidential adviser referenced in a recent New York Times article on factors relevant to white collar charges and sentencing outcomes. The piece notes a portrayal of that defendant as being “out of his depth” regarding his alleged involvement as a criminal wrongdoer. Papadopoulos was arguably “a pawn in a much larger case.”
The point is that a “tangled web” analysis in a white collar case is often an accurate portrayal of the purported facts in such a matter. Although prosecutors often – and unsurprisingly – seek to couch charges in simplest and unnuanced terms, there is often a great deal of nuance and complexity inherent in white collar cases.
As a result, a proven white collar defense team often has considerable ammunition it can employ to defend a client. Many defendants have no prior criminal record, no history of violence and are flatly unlikely to ever reoffend. Those and additional factors can often be telling points for arguing mitigated outcomes and alternative-to-prison sentences.