Federal Prison Consultants, Inc. has developed new strategies to help defend those who have been charged with a white collar crime. On staff is a forensic accountant with over 30 years of experience, along with several retired high-level Federal Bureau of Prisons & State Corrections staff and other experts related to federal and state prison and sentencing services.
Federal Prison Consultants, Inc. does not serve as defense counsel for White Collar defendants. We serve on an "as needed basis" as outside experts, if and as requested by your defense counsel -- when complex financial matters are put into play by White Collar charges anticipated or filed.
Time is of the essence in defending White Collar charges. If you are about to be charged or have been - and do not have an attorney experienced in White Collar crime, obtain good counsel -- or we can recommend several.
If brought on board early, experienced defense counsel can often work informally with prosecution to prevent an indictment -- or to craft a more favorable plea if deemed advisable by your counsel. Most cases do not go to trial, but that requires skillful negotiation.
If you are indicted, things move quickly. It is essential that experienced counsel be brought on-board early, to be given time to leverage what advantages you may have before indictment or early in the case.
Putting The Prosecutor's Financial Theory
Through A Pre-Trial "Acid Test"
Expert financial testimony is critical in many White Collar prosecutions, both on the conviction side and the acquittal side. Before and during trial, the prosecutor's financial experts needed to be tackled head on, to undermine the strength of the prosecutor's case.
Most defense firms do not have financial experts as full-time employees. Each outside expert speaks a peculiar jargon. At Federal Prison Consultants, Inc., we speak the language of outside financial experts, as well as the language of the prosecution and your defense counsel. We have years of experience of seeing how financial jargon and testimony does -- or does not -- translate to lay juries.
Our experience is not in certifying financial statements for the SEC, but in gaging what kinds or presentations of financial evidence is historically not persuasive for a jury of non-experts.
When "Gut Feel" Equals "Reasonable Doubt"
(PRWEB) October 15, 2005 -- At the end of a complex trial, a jury of lay persons often goes by "gut feel" in dealing with technical financial matters -- partly because the details from the expert witnesses has been forgotten by many jurors -- if understood in the first place.
The phrase "gut feel" is not to be found anywhere within "generally accepted accounting principles" or SEC regulations.
When stakes are high, Federal Prison Consultants, Inc. has access to outside expertise to perform an "acid test" review of the prosecutor's theory of the likely financial evidence before trial.
Many times, we learn most from prosecution cases that were lost, and why. Other times, a few key questions put to an expert at trial -- answered in a way that a lay jury could understand and remember -- carried the day.
Both the strong and weak points of the prosecutor's financial theory, from a scathing forensic review, can be important to your defense counsel as he or she decides what kind of expert and what kind of testimony is needed to rebut or to persuasively tell your side of the story.
Having an outside, objective view of both the strong and weak points of the prosecutor's financial theory, during trial preparation, can be an important way to eliminate surprise at trial.
Targeting The Weak Points In Financial Evidence
Our "acid test" Forensic Review searches out and targets those elements of technical financial testimony that may be most likely to confuse or cause a sense of "reasonable doubt" in at least one member of the jury.
If requested, we put the prosecutor's theory of the case through an "acid test" to show which financial evidence is most vulnerable for attack by defense experts - based upon the Prima Facie case that must be sustained.
If needed, we can assemble a "Shadow Jury" of representative jury persons to test both the prosecutor's financial case against you and your defense - again to look for any weak spots in prosecutor's case before you go to trial, whether it be the underlying assumptions by an expert witness, the statistical methodology, or whether the expert's qualifications and expert knowledge are not on point, or whether the expert testimony may be vulnerable to a collateral attack from another angle.
After Defense Financial Experts Are Lined Up
If requested, we can also do a Forensic Review of the financial strengths and weaknesses of your planned defense.
Because each trial is different, one size of defense does not fit all.
Obviously, the stakes are high in a White Collar case. It pays to be prepared with some idea of how complex financial evidence will actually be perceived by each subgroup of a likely jury pool. That's where we come in.
Naturally, there is no way to predict what a given jury will do, or which key points will end up being persuasive for either side.
Without a Shadow Jury, the temptation for both prosecutor and defendant is to presume that jurors will see the evidence from their educational or cultural vantage point - which could be an unfortunate assumption. That is the same kind of assumption that a prosecutor can make if his/her expert believes his testimony to a lay jury is the same transaction as certifying a financial statement for the SEC.
By experience, Hollywood has learned that it needs to carefully sample audience input before the "big show" goes on and millions of dollars are expended on concepts that don't "fly" with the actual audience. Even then, there are no guarantees.
Too often, the worst thing that can happen in any trial is surprise. Our expertise is to work with your counsel to reduce the element of surprise.
