White Collar Criminal Defense

A financial investigation is slow and document-heavy, and that changes what the early stage looks like. Agents and auditors gather bank records, subpoena emails, interview co-workers, and assemble a timeline for months before they ever approach you. If you have received a target or subject letter, a grand-jury or investigative subpoena, a request for documents, or an invitation to a “voluntary” interview, you’re already inside that process, and what you do next can determine whether charges are ever filed.

How a filing decision actually gets made, and what can be put in front of a prosecutor before it is made, is covered on our pre-filing representation page. A financial case adds a second front to that: the records themselves. Demands for documents can be narrowed, privileged material can be withheld, and a production made without advice is very hard to take back. None of that is available once statements have been given or documents surrendered without thought.

Discretion is part of the defense. White collar clients frequently have careers, licenses, businesses, and reputations that a public accusation can damage before any court rules. We handle these matters quietly, managing communications, avoiding unnecessary exposure, and protecting your name while the facts are still being sorted out. The instinct to “explain and cooperate” to make the problem go away is understandable and often costly; the better instinct is to get advice first.

White collar conduct can be prosecuted by the state of California, by the federal government, or sometimes by both, and which sovereign takes the case dramatically changes the stakes. State cases are brought by the Los Angeles County District Attorney, including its specialized fraud and major-crimes units, under the California Penal Code, and are heard in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Federal cases are brought by the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, headquartered in Los Angeles, under federal statutes carrying their own, often harsher, sentencing framework.

The investigating agency usually signals where a case is heading. Federal financial crimes are worked by the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in securities matters, IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) in tax and money-laundering matters, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in mail-fraud cases, and Homeland Security Investigations in others. State and local fraud is investigated by the District Attorney's investigators, the California Department of Insurance in insurance-fraud cases, the Franchise Tax Board and CDTFA in state tax matters, and local police financial-crimes detectives.

The dividing lines are practical: cases that cross state lines, move through the banking or mail systems, involve federal programs or agencies, or reach large dollar amounts tend to draw federal attention, while locally contained fraud, embezzlement, and theft are typically handled by the state. Federal exposure is generally more serious, determinate guidelines, restitution, and limited parole, so recognizing early which track a matter is on is a core part of the defense.

For residents of the San Fernando Valley, a state financial-crime case will generally be filed and prosecuted in the Valley's own courthouse rather than downtown, while a federal case is heard at the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. We advise clients on both tracks and, where parallel state and federal or civil and criminal proceedings exist, coordinate them so that a step in one does not damage your position in another.

California punishes financial crimes largely by the amount involved. The line that separates petty theft from grand theft, and misdemeanor from felony exposure, is generally $950 in value; above it, offenses such as grand theft under Penal Code § 487 (opens in new window) can be charged as felonies carrying up to three years in custody. Many white collar offenses are “wobblers,” meaning the prosecutor may file them as misdemeanors or felonies, and how a case is charged is itself something a defense can influence.

If money went out in small amounts over time, expect the prosecution to add them up. Penal Code § 487(b)(3) (opens in new window) treats takings by an employee or agent from an employer as grand theft once they total $950 or more in any twelve consecutive months, and those twelve months don’t have to line up with a calendar year, a fiscal year, or a payroll cycle. Whether a particular entry belongs in that total at all is often the first thing we look at.

A felony here also doesn’t automatically mean state prison. Penal Code § 17 defines a felony to include a crime punishable by imprisonment in a county jail under § 1170(h), and most theft and fraud felonies are written that way. Felony probation normally runs two years. For embezzlement, employee theft, and false financial statements where the total taken exceeds $25,000, § 1203.1(l)(2) lets the court impose three instead. That $25,000 line appears on almost no other California defense page, and it can matter as much to your life as the sentence does.

Restitution is central and often exceeds the fine. Courts routinely order repayment of the full claimed loss as a condition of any resolution, and the amount the government asserts is frequently inflated or double-counted, making the loss calculation a battleground in its own right, not a foregone conclusion. Fines, probation conditions, and forfeiture of assets can accompany a conviction.

The provision that most changes the stakes in a large California case is the aggravated white collar crime enhancement, Penal Code § 186.11 (opens in new window). When a person commits a pattern of related felony fraud or embezzlement offenses that results in the loss of more than $100,000, the enhancement adds prison time on a scale that rises with the amount taken, and the added term is greater still where the loss exceeds $500,000, up to five additional years at the top of the range. It also authorizes the court to freeze and levy assets to secure restitution, sometimes before trial, which means your own money can be locked up while the case is still pending. Because the enhancement requires both a qualifying loss threshold and a “pattern” of two or more related felonies against one or more victims, whether it applies at all is often contestable, and defeating it can matter as much as the underlying charge.

Beyond the sentence, a financial-crime conviction, which may be treated as a crime involving moral turpitude, a federal category with no statutory definition, carries collateral consequences that often outlast any custody. Professional licenses are directly at risk: doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants (CPAs), contractors, real-estate agents and brokers, insurance producers, and other licensees are generally required to report charges or convictions to their boards, which can suspend or revoke the credential your career depends on. A conviction can also affect immigration status, security clearances, the right to possess firearms, and future employment and lending. Where a conviction cannot be avoided, we work to structure the outcome, the charge, the level, and the record, to limit these downstream effects, and in appropriate cases pursue expungement under Penal Code § 1203.4 (opens in new window) after probation.

Boyadzhyan Legal Shield is based in Encino on Ventura Boulevard and defends white collar and financial-crime matters throughout the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Van Nuys, Woodland Hills, Studio City, Northridge, and the surrounding communities. For a professional or a business owner, a case like this is rarely only a criminal matter; it’s a licensing problem, an employment problem, and a reputation problem at the same time.

If you’re under investigation or charged with a state financial crime in the Valley, your case is most likely to be prosecuted at the Van Nuys Courthouse, which handles felony and misdemeanor matters for the San Fernando Valley. A federal white collar case is heard instead at the United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles, a different court, a different set of rules, and a different set of prosecutors. Working out which of those you’re facing, early, is one of the first things we do.

A quiet inquiry that hasn’t surfaced and a filed felony start the same way here: a confidential conversation about what you are facing and what can be done about it. We appear in Van Nuys and the surrounding Los Angeles County courts regularly, and we handle these matters with the discretion they require.