It’s 6 a.m. or 8 p.m., your doorbell rings and two people are standing outside holding up their badges and credentials. They say they are Special Agents with the FBI or IRS and would like to talk with you for just a few minutes about something important. They ask if they could come in [...]
Whether you are in federal or state court, well-crafted pretrial motions are essential to a successful defense. Pretrial motions are requests by way of formal motion, which may ask for the court to compel the prosecutor to turn over evidence, to dismiss the indictment or certain counts, to exclude or limit certain evidence, or to prevent the prosecutor from making certain arguments to the jury, among other things. These types of motions may also raise discovery violations; challenge the admission of evidence from searches, electronic surveillance, identifications, and custodial interrogation; and/or challenge the sufficiency of grand jury proceedings.
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GE) recently agreed to a $5.6 billion dollar settlement for its role in bundling subprime mortgages for sale to investors without disclosing that the mortgages had an unusually high percentage of credit and compliance issues. In doing so, it joins a number of other high profile banks who have admitted wrongdoing with regard to their roles in the mortgage frenzy that led up to the financial crisis in 2008.