18 USC 1343 Wire Fraud Defense

Wire fraud is the most dangerous federal statute you've never thought about. It wasn't designed to catch sophisticated financial criminals sending coded messages across telegraph wires. It was designed to give federal prosecutors jurisdiction over everything electronic - every email, every phone call, every text message, every Venmo payment, every bank transfer. The moment you send an electronic communication connected to what prosecutors later decide was a "scheme to defraud," that single communication becomes a 20-year federal felony. Send a hundred emails about a business deal that goes bad? That's potentially a hundred counts. Two thousand years of theoretical prison time.

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to help you understand exactly what you're facing when the federal government brings wire fraud charges - and why the difference between an aggressive business negotiation and a federal crime is often just a prosecutor's interpretation of your intent.

The statute is 18 USC 1343. It carries 20 years per count. If a financial institution is involved, it jumps to 30 years per count. The conviction rate hovers around 88%. Of those charged, 97% plead guilty. Only 3% roll the dice at trial, and defendants who do that receive sentences three times longer than those who plead. These are not encouraging numbers. These are numbers that should terrify anyone whose business involves electronic communication. Which is everyone.

Wire Fraud Isnt About Wires - Its About Giving Prosecutors Everything

Heres the first thing nobody tells you about wire fraud. The name is completly misleading. Wire fraud dosent require you to commit fraud THROUGH wires. It requires any fraud that happens to USE wires at any point. An email that mentions your business. A phone call to schedule a meeting. A text message to a colleague. The wire dosent have to BE the fraud. The wire just has to touch the fraud.

This is were the statute becomes something else entirely. The wire fraud law was originally passed in 1952 - back when "wires" meant telegraph lines and radio broadcasts. Congress wanted to give federal prosecutors jurisdiction over fraud schemes that crossed state lines electronically. But they wrote the statute so broadly that it now covers litterally every form of electronic communication invented since. Email. Cell phones. Text messages. Online banking. Payment apps. The statute dosent distinguish. If electrons moved across a wire, the federal government has jurisdiction.

Think about what that means for a second. In 1952, electronic communication was rare. Now its ubiquitous. Every single thing you do in business involves wires:

• Your email confirming a meeting? Wire.
• Your Zoom call discussing numbers? Wire.
• Your bank transfer paying an invoice? Wire.
• Your text message saying "sounds good"? Wire.

And heres were it gets dangerous. Prosecutors dont have to prove that the wire was integral to the fraud. They just have to prove the wire was incidentally connected. The wire helped "execute" the scheme in some way. This is such a low bar that practically any electronic communication becomes fair game.

Todd Spodek has handled hundreds of federal cases, and wire fraud is the charge he sees prosecutors add to almost everything. Its not because wire fraud is particuarly hard to prove. Its because wire fraud is EASY to prove. If there was a scheme, and there were emails, you've got wire fraud. The statute is designed to be the prosecutors all-purpose weapon.

Every Email Is a 20-Year Count - The Digital Count-Stacking Machine

OK so heres were most people first panic. Each wire is a separate count. Every email. Every phone call. Every text. Every transfer. Each one carries 20 years.

In theory, a business dispute that involved 50 emails means 50 counts of wire fraud. That's a thousand years of prison exposure. Obviously no one actualy serves a thousand years. But the count stacking creates incredible leverage for prosecutors. They can offer to drop 45 of those 50 counts in exchange for a guilty plea on five. Suddenly your facing 100 years instead of a thousand. And 100 years still sounds terrifying enough that most defendants take the plea.

This is exactly how the system is designed to work. The 97% guilty plea rate isnt an accident. Its the direct result of count stacking. When every email becomes a potential decade in prison, fighting becomes mathmatically irrational.

But wait - theres more. Loss enhancements under the Sentencing Guidelines can add massive amounts to your offense level. If the loss is over $65 million, your looking at an enhancement of 24 levels. Thats a guideline range that starts in the decades even before you add any other factors. Sam Bankman-Fried's 25-year sentence wasnt because he sent alot of emails. It was because the loss calculation ran into the billions.

At Spodek Law Group, we see clients who cant beleive a failed business deal could result in federal charges. But thats exacty how wire fraud works. If the government decides your business failure was actualy a fraud scheme, every email you sent about that business becomes a count. The difference between entrepreneurship and federal crime is often just a prosecutor's characterization of your intent.

And the intent element? Its not as protective as you think.

What Prosecutors Actually Have to Prove (After Ciminelli and Kousisis)

The elements of wire fraud sound simple. Prosecutors have to prove:

1. You knowingly devised or participated in a scheme to defraud
2. You intended to defraud
3. You used interstate wire communications to further that scheme

The third element is almost never contested. If you used email or made a phone call, you used interstate wires. Done.

The second element - intent - is were defendants think they have protection. But intent is almost never proven directly. Nobody sends an email saying "I hereby intend to defraud you." Instead, prosecutors prove intent through circumstances. They show what you knew. What you should of known. What a reasonable person would of understood. And juries infur the rest.

Heres the uncomfortable truth. If your business deal looked suspicious in hindsight, a jury will probably find intent. The 88% conviction rate tells you how often that happens.

The first element is were recent Supreme Court cases have actualy helped defendants. In Ciminelli v. United States (2023), the Court narrowed what counts as a "scheme to defraud." Specifically, they rejected the "right to control" theory that some circuits had been using. Now prosecutors have to show you were trying to obtain money or property through false pretenses - not just deprive someone of economic information.

Before Ciminelli, some prosecutors were bringing wire fraud charges against people who didnt actualy steal anything. The theory was that if you deprived someone of "valuable economic information" or their "right to control" assets, that counted as fraud. This was a massive expansion of the statute. You could be convicted for wire fraud just for failing to disclose information that mattered to someone else's decision-making. The Supreme Court shut that down. Now the scheme has to involve traditional property fraud - getting money or property through lies.

Then in Kousisis v. United States (2025), the Court confirmed that the scheme has to involve an intent to deceive for financial gain. This sounds obvious, but it actualy provides a defense in certain cases. If you were deceiving people but NOT for financial gain, or if you were seeking financial gain but NOT through deception, the statute dosent apply.

What does this mean in practice? It means regulatory violations that dont involve stealing money might not be wire fraud. It means business disputes were both sides benefited might not be wire fraud. It means the government cant stretch the statute to cover every dishonest act in commerce. Only the ones were you actualy took something that belonged to someone else.

Clients come to Spodek Law Group after reading about these cases and thinking they have a defense. Sometimes they do. But the reality is that most wire fraud prosecutions involve clear financial motives and clear deception. The recent cases help on the margins. They dont change the core calculus.

The 88% Reality - Why Fighting Wire Fraud Is Statistically Insane

Let that sink in. 88% of wire fraud prosecutions end in conviction. And thats just the people who go to trial. 97% plead guilty before trial. When you combine those numbers, you realize that federal prosecutors almost never loose.

The people who do get aquitted? Thats 12%. But heres the kicker. Defendants who go to trial and loose recieve sentences three times longer then defendants who plead guilty. This is called the "trial penalty" and its completly real. Federal prosecutors have a sentancing tool called the "acceptance of responsibility" reduction that they can recommend if you plead guilty. Go to trial? No reduction. You also loose any goodwill with the judge.

So the math looks like this. You can plead guilty and serve X years. Or you can go to trial, face an 88% chance of conviction, and if you loose, serve 3X years. Unless your absoulutely certain of acquital - and almost nobody is - the rational choice is to plead.

Ive watched Todd negotiate outcomes in cases were the evidence looked overwhelming. The key isnt usually winning at trial. The key is reducing the count exposure, challenging the loss calculations, and positioning for the best possible plea. Fighting wire fraud dosent mean taking every case to trial. It means understanding were the leverage actually is.

This is what Spodek Law Group does. We handle federal cases were the odds look impossible. Not because we win every trial - nobody does - but because we know how to work the angles that actualy matter.

From WorldCom to FTX - The Same Statute, Different Decades

Consider this. Bernard Ebbers, the WorldCom CEO, was convicted of wire fraud in 2005 and sentenced to 25 years. Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX founder, was convicted of wire fraud in 2023 and sentenced to 25 years. Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos - wire fraud. John Rigas from Adelphia - wire fraud. The National Prearranged Services funeral home fraud - $450 million stolen from grieving families - wire fraud.

The statute dosent care wheather your a tech bro in the Bahamas or a funeral home executive in Missouri. If there was a scheme, and there were wires, federal prosecutors can charge you. The same 1952 statute that was written for telegraph fraud now puts cryptocurrency executives and Silicon Valley founders in prison.

This is the versatility that makes wire fraud so dangerous. Its not a specialized statute for specialized crimes. Its a catch-all. Prosecutors love it because it applies to everything. Defense attorneys fear it because it really does apply to everything.

Look at what happened to Sam Bankman-Fried. The FTX collapse involved billions of dollars in customer funds. The government could of charged him with all kinds of specialized financial crimes. Instead, they led with wire fraud. Why? Because every text message, every email, every Slack message between SBF and his colleagues became a count. The wire fraud charges were the easiest to prove and the hardest to defend against. The cryptocurrency was incidental. The technology was incidental. What mattered was the wires.

The same pattern shows up in every major corporate prosecution. Enron. WorldCom. Tyco. HealthSouth. The government builds the case around wire fraud because its the path of least resistance. Specialized fraud statutes have specific elements that can be fought. Wire fraud just needs a scheme and an email.

Every case is differant. But the pattern is always the same. A business fails or investors loose money. Somebody calls the FBI. Investigators look through your emails. And suddenly communications that seemed totaly normal at the time become evidence of "the scheme."

This is were clients get blindsided. Your email saying "we're making great progress" becomes evidence of false representations. Your text saying "investors will love this" becomes evidence of the scheme. Your phone call discussing projections becomes a wire that furthered the fraud. None of these communications seemed criminal when you sent them. They only become criminal when prosecutors characterize them as part of a scheme.

Todd Spodek always says the same thing about wire fraud. The statute wasnt designed to be fair. It was designed to be effective. And its brutaly effective at putting people in federal prison.

Defenses That Actually Work - Intent, Good Faith, and Materiality

Despite everything above, defenses do exist. And in the right case, they can be dispositive.

Intent and Good Faith

This is the most common defense and the most important. Wire fraud requires specific intent to defraud. If you genuinly believed what you were saying, if you thought the business would succeed, if you never intended to deceive anyone - that can defeat the charge. Prosecutors have to prove you KNEW you were lying. If your belief was honest but wrong, thats not fraud.

The problem is that "good faith" is a credibility battle. Juries look at what you did, what you said, and what a reasonable person would of understood. If the evidence makes you look dishonest, claiming good faith wont save you. But if you have documentation showing you believed in the venture, if you can show that the failure was unexpected, if your actions are consistant with honest mistake rather then intentional deception - good faith becomes a real defense.

Materiality

After Ciminelli, prosecutors have to prove the deception was material - that it actually mattered to the victim's decision. If you lied about something trivial, something that wouldnt of changed the victim's behavior, that might not be wire fraud. This defense is harder to win then good faith, but it matters in specific cases.

No Scheme

This goes back to Ciminelli and Kousisis. The "scheme" has to involve obtaining money or property through deceit. If there was no scheme - if what happened was just a business failure, a disagreement, or even civil fraud - that might not rise to federal wire fraud. This defense requires carefully parsing what prosecutors are actually alleging and challenging wheather it meets the statutory definition.

Jurisdictional Challenges

The wire has to be interstate - crossing state lines. In theory, if all the wires stayed within one state, federal jurisdiction fails. In practice, this almost never works because email routes through servers all over the country and prosecutors can trace interstate transmissions in almost any case.

Statute of Limitations

Wire fraud has a five-year statute of limitations from the date of the offense. But heres the complication - each wire is a seperate offense with its own limitations period. If you sent emails over a three-year period, the government has five years from the last email to bring charges. This extends the exposure window significantly. Still, if the government waits too long, limitations becomes a real defense.

Challenging the Loss Calculation

Even if conviction is likely, the loss amount drives the sentence. Prosecutors often use "intended loss" or "reasonably foreseeable loss" calculations that massively inflate the numbers. Challenging these calculations can reduce your sentancing exposure by years. This isnt a defense to conviction, but its critical to outcome.

This is why Spodek Law Group exists - to find the defense that actualy fits your case. Wire fraud is terrifying because of its scope. But scope dosent mean conviction is guarenteed. Every case has weaknesses. Every prosecution makes assumptions that can be challenged. The key is having representation that knows were to look.

What to Do Right Now If Your Facing Wire Fraud Charges

The federal government moves fast once charges are filed. You need representation imediately. Not a local lawyer who handles DUIs. A federal criminal defense attorney who understands how the U.S. Attorney's Office operates, how sentancing works, and were the leverage is in wire fraud cases.

Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. The consultation is free. The mistake of waiting isnt.

Wire fraud carries real consequences. Prison. Asset forfeiture. Restitution that follows you for life. Career destruction. But the outcome isnt predetermined. The 88% conviction rate includes alot of defendants who never had proper representation. Who didnt understand the count stacking strategy. Who walked into court without a plan.

Thats not you. Not if you call now.

Todd Spodek built his reputation on cases exacty like this. Federal charges. Overwhelming odds. Clients who thought there case was hopeless. The differance isnt magic. Its preparation, strategy, and experience.

Your facing wire fraud charges under 18 USC 1343. You know what that means now. Every email is a count. Every count is 20 years. The conviction rate is 88%. The trial penalty is real.

But you also know that defenses exist. That recent Supreme Court cases have narrowed the statute. That intent can be challenged. That good faith is real.

Call us. 212-300-5196. Our office is in the Woolworth Building in Manhattan, but we handle federal cases nationwide. Wire fraud dosent wait. Neither should you.