Paul: Welcome to “Trace on the Case”, the podcast where we talk about unique cases, economic damage claims, financial investigations, and various aspects of white-collar crime. My name is Paul Rodrigues, and I’ll be your host. My partner Deb Temkin and I have over 60 years of experience between us in doing what we love to do, tracing money and tracing the people. We’ve seen it all, and in this show, we are going to be taking you below the surface, deep into our world, so you can learn how we work and how we’ve solved some very complex problems, because let’s face it, the most tricky cases require bringing in the experts. This is “Trace on the Case” and we have a tremendous episode ahead of us and we are happy you’re here, so let’s get into it.
Paul: Hi, this is Paul Rodrigues with Trace on the Case, I’m with Trace Forensic Experts and my guest today is John Teakell. John Teakell is an attorney out of Dallas Texas who specializes in criminal defense and white-collar crime, thanks for being with us today John. John: Sure, thank you, Paul, thank you for having me. Paul: I wanted to talk to you a little bit, find out about you and the work that you do and then go into a little detail where our backgrounds cross over with the work we do. How does that sound? John: Sounds great! Sure, I was a state prosecutor as a young attorney, and then, after a few years, I got into the US attorney’s office, and the federal prosecutor's office, and most of my time was in the Northern District of Texas, in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I got recruited to assist in the district of Puerto Rico since it is a US territory. There is a large federal presence there because it’s a dumping ground; it still is, as I understand, for powder cocaine coming out of South America, some out of Panama, and with that you have large money laundering cases, federal death penalty cases, things like that. I spent three years there, came back, a couple of years in Miami at the Securities Exchange Commission and then came back to the Dallas Fort Worth area to go into private practice. As you said, I’ve been focusing on federal criminal defense and some state defenses as well, and I do all kinds of federal defense cases, especially white collar. Paul: Excellent! Have you seen any growing trends lately, as far as your clientele that you’re picking up? Are either the federal or state governing bodies targeting a certain area right now? Or are your cases all over the place? John: Yes, I do see some growing trends. I’ve seen them here recently, but before I get into that, as you know traditionally, the US attorneys' offices, and the federal prosecutors' offices focus on two main categories and a lot of things fit under those:
With that being said, you’re seeing generally the use of computers facilitating some of the schemes that have been around for a while, kind of taking them to a new level. Then also you’re seeing the use of people's money going into people's accounts. For example, you could call them “money mules” (that’s what they’ve been referred to and what I have referred those cases to) - people who are contacted to use their account because someone wants to run money through there and essentially launder it, and it doesn’t show up in the perpetrator's name but it shows up in this person's name. Sometimes, those people are victims; sometimes they are willing participants as a co-conspirator, and then you see other identity theft-related things like refund fraud schemes, where online use and computers have really enhanced and facilitated those things. Yes, definitely the computer fraud-related crimes picked up during COVID. I saw that I had several cases that came up where somebody was spoofing their email accounts and figured out “who's who” and sent an email to let's say “the accounts payable clerk”, from the president (which wasn’t from the president) telling her to make these payments or transfers and one of the clients got hit, not just once, but twice, over $1 million each. So he was out well over $2 million. They didn’t catch it right away because a lot of people were asleep at the wheel during COVID-19, so that was quite tragic. So, you know, we work with ediscovery firms and data scientists that try to track things down like that, but once it’s out of the country or been moved it’s near impossible to get back, so I don’t work a lot of those types of cases. But on money laundering, or any of the other white-collar crimes where there are damages or money is missing, I have worked on those kinds of cases as well. Paul: Have you worked with other experts in the past, forensics accountants or private investigators? Who do you typically work with? John: A number of times private investigators, and sometimes forensic accountants, and sometimes they can be used, as you’ve alluded to, as being an expert. If there is an issue about what were the loss amounts, was this person responsible for it, was it something someone else did, those kinds of things. I think you’re going to continue to see more of that because, as you indicated the moment ago, the use of ordering online, online processing, online communications - things are done quicker and then if someone hits the button and buys or sends the money or what have you, it’s often done quicker to try and process and quickly take the order and communicate. And then it becomes a situation where sometime later, maybe soon thereafter, they learn that there is an issue or a problem or an identity switch, someone else is spoofing, all those things. Paul: Before the interview we had talked a little bit about certain things, and one of the items that came up that I get asked about a lot, is about Brady violations. Could you comment on some of those? Perhaps you could help us from a legal standpoint, what exactly is a Brady violation and how might that help somebody? John: Well, the government is obligated to provide all discovery evidence, meaning all the case evidence that they potentially would use against a person who is being indicted or charged with a crime. For years now, the Supreme Court had held years ago that the government has the obligation that they need to produce; they can’t hold it back, that’s been a standard in criminal law for years, for decades. So it is the obligation of the federal prosecutors and state prosecutors to provide all the evidence that they potentially could use against someone who’s been prosecuted. Now there are some exceptions along the way, for example, statements for government witnesses - they don’t have to produce those until you get closer to trial. But aside from things like that, you are obligated to produce the evidence. So occasionally, you will find where there is some issue with a government entity not providing something, it may be the prosecutor himself, it may be the agent or agency who didn’t produce something but they learned about it later and then it’s produced late or not even produced. So, you run into those things occasionally. Paul: If it was found to be a violation then what is the recourse for the individual? John: Well, if there is a violation, depending on the circumstances and how severe and how close to trial those kinds of things are,, it’s then up to the judge as to what to do. And he could impose sanctions and oftentimes they are prohibiting the government from introducing that evidence in their case. If it is a very egregious situation. It may result in a dismissal of the indictment, it could be a postponement of the trial, or a resetting of the trial date based on newly discovered evidence or evidence that was not produced that should have been produced before. Those things do happen. It's not uncommon to get either a continuance or just having a ruling where the government is prohibited from introducing that evidence because they didn’t make it available to the defendant so they could digest it and try to: number one, take it into consideration as to whether they’re going to go to trial or not; number two, if they would need time to counter that and see if that is something that there is a rebuttal for. Paul: Excellent! Then I wanted to touch base on where we cross over. I typically get involved as a forensic accountant, looking at evidence and looking at who did what and by how much, therefore quantifying it, giving a damages perspective. Because I work both civil and criminal cases, I always get questions regarding the sentencing guidelines. Without jumping into the nitty-gritty, just in general at least, with the federal sentencing guidelines - it’s tied to the amount of damage, right? John: It is, for white-collar cases, of course. The sentencing guidelines apply across the board federally and the US sentencing guidelines are something that exists in the federal system but they do not exist in the state system, and essentially the sentencing guidelines are a point system for criminal cases. Depending on the offense, you get a certain amount of points to start with. You can possibly get some enhancements if you’re an organizer or leader of the group. If there’s violence or threats involved, you get points added. If it was a sophisticated methodology for carrying out a scheme you can get points added, things like that. And then there is a loss ladder or the loss table. The higher the loss, the more points you get, and the end result is the more points you get, the higher the imprisonment recommendation range. That’s a recommendation range, and the judge does not have to follow that. But, to deviate from that, he has to articulate a reason on the record. Yes, and white-collar cases are to a great degree loss-driven as you’re indicting. Just like in drug trafficking cases to a good degree, they are driven by the quantity the person is responsible for. And the same applies in white-collar - that the dollar amount to which you are held responsible as opposed to maybe someone who is the number one or number two defendant. Paul: So they probably look at the nature and the character of the act, the degree to which somebody was involved, and to what extent it was carried out - those other variables you mentioned? John: Yes, things like - did you come into the conspiracy halfway through, as opposed to the beginning? Even if you’re totally involved, the loss amount for guideline purposes would still be less than the people who started from the very beginning. Paul: Yes, exactly! Well, we are getting to the end of our segment, and I wanted to see if you have any interesting stories or a memorable case you might want to share, without sharing names, in a generic sense, of a memorable case or something exciting that you’ve encountered because you’ve been practicing for a while. John: Yes, I could probably name a few. A couple that come to my mind right away is back when I was at the US attorney's offices. As an example, I had prosecuted a large continuing oil and gas fraud scheme, and it involved several “programs,’” where people would solicit money from investors. It turned out to be very large because there were a lot of programs, which they would keep loading people into, taking their money, but also other tentacles such as threatening former employees, attempts to bribe state officials, the money laundering aspect, and things like that. The people who were at the top and mid-level stood to get a lot of time. They went to trial and a number of them were convicted, because of all the factors you gave a while ago for guidelines purposes. Some of the people who were at the top or had management authority within the group got a significant amount of time. Whereas in state court, you can ask for probation where it’s a non-violent deal, if it’s not very big, nobody was hurt. In the federal system, you have the sentencing guidelines. These people got 10, 12, 20-something years even on white-collar cases. One of the things I recall, aside from that, as an example of what we are talking about on the guidelines, is some of the actions were very large numbers and losses but also some of the people toward the top had some pretty egregious actions. Then even some of the lower players who were indicted, and who had some degree of authority within the company, looked like they were fairly innocent in comparison to the people at the top. Some of those people obviously got lower sentences in comparison, and there were even one or two of them who went to trial. Of course, it was a large group who went to trial. So, it took a long time. There were even a couple that were found not guilty because, even though they were involved and they had some degree of authority (but not nearly as much as those at the top), they looked relatively clean in comparison to the people toward the top and at the top. That was kind of a reverse lesson for everyone. Paul: Were they just following orders then? John: No, we tried to weed out the ones that were there for a while, then left and realized what was going on. But then there were some that stayed. Then again, the actions looked so innocuous or less important in comparison. Sometimes you run into that reality. It was a situation that just happened, but for the most part, the people who were indicted were convicted. Another matter I’m remembering, more recently, as I defended a person, the long and the short of it is that the government thought that he was involved with this tax fraud scheme, which has become more common in the last several years, where people will gather identities or will make up identities. Or in this case, mostly when you’re dealing with the treasury department, they will get real people's identities, file tax returns in their name unbeknownst to the real person and duke with the numbers, so it turns out to be a refund and then say “send the refund here”. Well, they do that on a wholesale basis. There's a lot of money adding up. The point being, the client I had, the government thought he was involved in that and we showed that he was not involved. Then they backed up and said but he’s allowing them to launder money because money is going through his account. Well, he had a business and on the side, he cashed checks for clients and that grew into other people, but it showed he had a legitimate business and that he had no criminal intent from our perspective because it just didn’t fit the government's narrative. Long story short, we were beginning trial and he ended up getting probation rather than risk it at trial even though it was a pretty decent defense. He went ahead and took the probation and that’s in a way the good news. The other news is that I think he should have never been targeted or indicted in the first place. Sometimes those things happen and that’s part of what we have to do sometimes, is to weed out, on both sides, those who should be included versus those who should not be included. Paul: Gotcha. Well, John, thank you for attending “Trace on the Case”. How would some of our audience members get a hold of you, should they like to contact you? John: Well, my website www.teakelllaw.com has my office number and email address. You can look me up, I’m around. If anybody wants to contact me, I’d be glad to speak with them Paul: Sounds great! Again thank you for being part of “Trace on the Case” podcast episode number 15. We look forward to the next episode hopefully coming up in the next week or so. I’ve been extremely busy on cases, as I know you have John. We gotta get back to work at this point if we’re not out again next week. Please stand by. There will be more coming. John: Thank you, Paul. I appreciate it. I’m glad to be a part of it. Paul: Thank you! Thank you for listening to another episode of 'Trace on the Case'. If you’ve enjoyed the show there are many more on the way. We encourage you to subscribe, tell a friend, and leave a five-star review on Apple podcast or Spotify. That’s the number one way to help the show. To learn more about myself, Deb, and Trace as an organization, visit traceforensic.com . Thank you again for joining us, we are very excited to talk again with you next week, so bring a friend! ​
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