FBI Raids In Criminal Defense
Over the past twenty-five years, I've represented many clients whose homes, offices, or businesses were raided by the FBI.
Usually, when the FBI comes, they also bring in local law enforcement to control the scene. In other words, they're often going into the jurisdiction of a local law enforcement agency, or sometimes, they will use those police officers or sheriffs to assist them in securing the scene. Then they come in and typically search. If they're going to raid a location, they usually have a search warrant. After that, they'll secure any individuals in there and try to talk to them.
Many times before they talk to them, they'll wait to see what they get and then say, look what we've got. We found this, this, and this. Is this your stuff? Or if they're seizing a computer, they'll ask who owns it. Who's in control of the computer?
They'll be able to use that later once they have the computer checked, whether forensically or simply by looking themselves to see what's been downloaded on it. If a person admits that it's their computer and nobody else used it, now they have evidence that whatever's on that computer is likely the person who admitted that that was their computer.
So, these FBI raids across the country – not just in Los Angeles, where my main law firm is based — I've handled FBI cases in almost every state in the nation where the FBI comes in. They've already done some investigation – whether it be surveillance, talking to informants, or whatever evidence they had that believes there's some federal criminal activity afoot in the location that they raid. They typically have a search warrant in hand and sometimes have arrest warrants, or they just have the evidence to arrest the person.
They go in and they search the location. They arrest whoever they're going to arrest. They take statements, and then whatever case they've built, they put whatever they find in the raid on the case. Whatever statements they get, they put them as part of the evidence, and they submit them to prosecutors. Usually, if the FBI is involved – unless they kick the case down to the states – if the FBI's involved, they're going to send the case to the federal prosecutors.
Federal Prosecutors
They're called Assisting United States Attorneys, and then the prosecutors will decide based on the evidence that the FBI obtained from their raid. They'll decide what, if any, charges will be filed against the raid targets.
Sometimes it takes some time. Sometimes, I've seen the FBI go in, raid a location, and not arrest anybody. Then the person comes to me or some other criminal defense attorney and says, why didn't they arrest us? Often, they're in the middle of an investigation and don't have everything they need to indict the person, or they want to get more evidence against them or get more people involved with the indictments. So, sometimes, they'll just come in, do whatever they're doing, and leave — seize things, take statements, and go.
Now, you go to a criminal defense attorney, and typically, I tell the client that we need to find out exactly what they got. Then, I can give you an idea of what they may or may not file against you. The next question is going to be, what other evidence do they have? In other words, can we glean anything from what's in the documents that were given?
Can we glean anything from what they give you or what questions they ask about what evidence they might have that a crime is being committed and when they're going to prosecute you?
A lot of times, what I do is have you get me the agent names. A lot of times, they leave business cards or whatever documents they leave. I can get it from that, and I'll either talk to the FBI myself – the FBI agents who were part of the raid – or I'll find out if they have prosecutors who they have to answer to, which makes it a whole lot easier for me because then I'll just go right to the prosecutors who are my colleagues on the other side. Then, we'll sit down and formulate our defense strategy and see where we move from there.
