WILLIAM M. PEARSON, P.A.
In the last ten years, we have seen an explosion of state and federal enforcement actions against corporations, their officers and directors as well as others in the non-corporate world. The state and federal government's efforts to strengthen the regulatory process through criminal prosecutions has had a tremendous effect on business. Business regulators, with greater enforcement authority, have referred matters to state and federal prosecutors with greater frequency. The by-product of those enforcement actions, perhaps even when investigating criminal activity in the legitimate business world, is that legitimate corporations and those involved in legitimate business, often get run over by law enforcement. As a result, corporations and their officers as well as the small business operators, are constantly becoming targets or subjects of state and federal investigations. The financial incentive for state and federal investigators to focus on significant asset forfeiture as well as monetary penalties in conjunction with criminal conduct is great and prevalent. Business entities and individuals have had to take steps to minimize the threat of criminal exposure and to ultimately prevent criminal prosecution. The threat of criminal prosecution is intimidating - the impact of criminal prosecution is devastating. We have tremendous experience at defending those accused of crimes and in developing strategies for responding to formal (subpoena) or informal (visit from federal agents or state investigators) investigative inquiries, navigating through the various complex issues of non-trial resolution and providing consultation and advice to the client. We have experience in using substantial investigative and, when necessary, technological resources to resolve issues and level the heavily imbalanced playing field created by a state or federal investigation. We work tirelessly to diffuse matters at the investigation stage and realize that our best work is when we can prevent the filing of charges in the first place. We represent clients during every stage in the criminal proceedings, and we also have substantial experience in compliance issues, internal corporate investigations, government investigations, grand jury proceedings, all types of prosecutable fraud charges, health care, money laundering and money structuring charges, narcotics importation and distribution, political corruption, government corruption, Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) violations, SEC regulatory violations, environmental violations, and asset forfeiture defense. On those occasions when charges have already been filed or become unavoidable, our experience in negotiating non-trial resolutions is extensive, considering the complexity of the issues surrounding sentencing guidelines, restitution, fines and forfeiture. When non-trial resolution is not a viable or palatable option, our extensive trial experience is invaluable.