Maryland Federal White Collar Crime Lawyer
A White Collar Crime is a term that is used in the legal community to describe things that are usually criminal acts that are financially related. These are things that you might hear about like insider trading, embezzling of funds from employers, or stealing from banks. Now, there are crimes that are low level White Collar Criminal acts that are as simple as using another person’s credit card to make a small purchase all the way up to your multi-million dollar and multi-billion dollar stock scams and racketeering cases. So, White Collar Criminal cases include a wide range of acts but generally they are associated with financially related crimes.
What The Most Common White Collar Crimes?
I would say the most common things that we see are the ones that are low dollar crimes like check fraud cases, credit card fraud cases, and things that are easy for regular people to access. We would usually find these cases being handled in state courts at the misdemeanor level depending on the amount that was actually involved in the criminal act that took place.
Are White Collar Crimes Typically a Federal or State Offense?
They can be either state or federal offense depending on the kind of criminal charges and what jurisdiction they fall into.
Certain ones usually become federal cases for one of two reasons. Either the case falls under federal jurisdiction meaning it is not relying on any particular state jurisdiction or rather the crime might itself cross over state lines. These are often White Collar crimes associated with stock scams, businesses that have offices in multiple states, or with bank fraud cases where a fraud is perpetuated against a bank that has branches all over the country.
Sometimes, federal jurisdiction can be about the amount that might be involved in a particular case. Federal courts will take over a jurisdiction from the state courts if they feel that the case warrants, if it is heinous enough, and if it is in the community’s best interests to actually move the case into the federal jurisdiction.
How Does Jurisdiction Change the Way a Case is Processed?
Is not necessarily going to change the way a White Collar case is processed. Federal cases are usually going to be more detailed and more involved because, again, they are dealing with a different kind of evidence. It is going to be more complex, probably involving larger corporations, companies, or government agencies where investigations can often take a lot longer than your average state White Collar Criminal case.
What the government would be required to prove would be the same, whether there is a state or federal White Collar Criminal case. They still need to prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, require admissible evidence, and the investigation is still going to be very intense and detailed regardless of the jurisdiction.
Where Are Federal White Collar Cases Heard in Maryland?
Maryland has two different federal courts where cases are heard. They are either in the northern district or the southern district of the Maryland Federal Court System. Hearings will take place either in the Greenbelt Federal Court which is located in Greenbelt, MD or Baltimore Federal Court which is located in Baltimore City, MD.