FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAWYERS

Federal Target Letters

Grand jury expert.

That’s what they call Todd Spodek. He teaches other lawyers how federal investigations actually work – not the textbook version, the real version where prosecutors already know most of what they need before sending that first letter. Spodek Law Group operates in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, where most target letters originate, where the biggest cases happen. Remember Anna Delvey? The fake heiress who scammed Manhattan’s elite, facing decades in federal prison for wire fraud, Todd Spodek kept her sentence to 4-12 years. That’s the difference between understanding federal prosecutors and just reading about them, the firm has a 10.0 Avvo rating – perfect score, mathematically speaking – and Super Lawyers recognition puts them in the top 5% of attorneys nationwide, based on peer reviews and independent research, not paid advertisements, many, many, years handling federal cases from those first terrifying letters through trial. This article walks you through exactly what happens when the Department of Justice makes you a target – from that envelope arriving through your indictment decision, based on real 2025 cases and actual timelines, not what defense lawyers want you to believe. Your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and Sixth Amendment right to counsel aren’t abstract concepts when federal prosecutors are building a case against you.

The Letter Arrived

You just opened a letter from the Department of Justice. It says you’re a “target” of a federal criminal investigation, your hands are shaking, cold sweat forming, the letter mentions a grand jury, mentions your right to counsel, invites you to contact the Assistant U.S. Attorney within two weeks, but what does any of that mean at 11:47 PM when you’re standing in your kitchen, envelope torn open on the counter, trying to process that the federal government – the actual United States government – is investigating you for something you might not even remember doing or might have thought was completely legal at the time. You have no idea what triggered this – maybe that business deal from two years ago, maybe those tax returns you amended, maybe something you don’t even remember. Late-night googling isn’t helping, every article says something different, and you’re trying to understand if you’re about to be arrested, if the FBI is watching your house, if you should call that number or stay silent. Your spouse asks questions you can’t answer, wants to know if you’re going to prison, how much this will cost, whether the kids will find out, whether the neighbors already know. They’ve been investigating for months, sometimes years, before sending this letter, that’s the part that makes your stomach drop – while you were living your normal life, going to work, taking vacations, celebrating holidays, federal agents were pulling your bank records, reading your emails, interviewing people you do business with, building a case against you. Bank records pulled going back seven years. Emails reviewed including ones you deleted. Co-defendants interviewed, possibly wearing wires. That two-week suggestion in the letter isn’t really a deadline – it’s a test, they want to see if you’ll panic, call without a lawyer present, volunteer information they don’t actually have yet, admit to things they only suspect. The real deadline is when the grand jury meets next, which could be next Thursday in Manhattan federal court or three weeks from now in Brooklyn. By the time you get a target letter, prosecutors believe they have “substantial evidence” linking you to a federal crime – that’s the DOJ’s official definition, not speculation but actual evidence they’ve already shown to supervisors. They wouldn’t waste paper, wouldn’t risk alerting you to flee or destroy evidence, unless they were confident they could get an indictment if they wanted one right now. “Substantial evidence” means more than you think, less than proof beyond reasonable doubt which is what they’d need at trial. The difference between being a target, subject, and witness determines everything about how this plays out. Targets face likely indictment – that’s you with the letter sitting on your kitchen counter. Subjects might have committed crimes but prosecutors aren’t sure yet, they’re often people who could be charged but might also flip and become cooperators. Witnesses just have information, they saw something, know something, but aren’t suspected of crimes themselves. Once you’re designated a target, prosecutors have already presented evidence to a grand jury or are about to within days. In 2024’s healthcare fraud sweep the DOJ sent target letters to 193 medical professionals accused of Medicare fraud, billing for services never provided, paying kickbacks for referrals, falsifying patient records. Within 90 days, 76 got indicted, arrested at their homes and offices, practices shut down, licenses suspended, names in newspapers. That’s a 39% conversion rate, but here’s what they don’t advertise – the other 61% negotiated plea deals with no jail time, cooperated against bigger targets, or proved their innocence through their attorneys before charges were ever filed. PPP loan fraud letters are still going out in 2025, three years after the program ended. They send the target letter when they’re confident but not certain, when they have enough to charge but might want more, when cooperation could strengthen their case against bigger fish, when they think you might crack and confess to things they only partially understand. The grand jury has probably been meeting for weeks already, reviewing bank records, hearing from witnesses, examining emails you forgot existed. They don’t need your testimony to indict. In the Eastern District of New York, grand juries meet Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the Southern District, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Twenty-three citizens deciding your fate, and prosecutors only need twelve votes for an indictment, not unanimous, not even close to unanimous, just twelve people saying there’s probable cause to believe you committed a federal crime.

Three days. Maybe less.

Your Timeline

Forget what the letter implies. January 6 defendants who received target letters faced indictment an average of 60 to 120 days later. Tax evasion cases from 2025 show 72% of target letter recipients indicted within six months – the IRS Criminal Investigation division sent over 450 target letters in Q1 2025 alone, mostly for cryptocurrency transactions, foreign accounts, pandemic relief fraud. Some factors accelerate your timeline, media attention pushes prosecutors to act fast, if your case is in the news, expect indictment within 30 days because prosecutors hate when defense attorneys try cases in the press. Co-defendants cooperating speeds everything up, when others are talking, prosecutors don’t need to wait for you, they already have the inside information. Multiple targets means coordinated arrests, usually within 45 days of the first person who flips. Complex financial investigations take longer, forensic accountants tracing money through shell companies, offshore accounts, cryptocurrency tumblers. October 2024’s cryptocurrency fraud case in the Southern District: target letters went out, but indictments didn’t come for five months while prosecutors unraveled blockchain transactions through multiple exchanges. International components add time, money moved through foreign banks, co-conspirators living abroad, mutual legal assistance treaties taking months.

Evidence destruction.

Every deleted email becomes a separate felony. Twenty years for obstruction. Prosecutors recover deleted files, subpoena cloud backups, get metadata showing exactly when files were destroyed, down to the second. One target in a 2024 healthcare fraud case deleted patient records after getting the letter – turned a 5-year fraud charge into a 25-year combined sentence, the cover-up worse than the crime.

Three Choices

Proffer sessions – they call them “Queen for a Day” agreements, you tell prosecutors everything, they can’t use your exact words against you, but they can use the information to find more evidence, and they will. Not safe. Everything you say points them toward evidence they can use, every detail you provide becomes a roadmap for their investigation, every name you mention gets a subpoena. One misstatement becomes a lying to federal agents charge, five years just for getting a date wrong. They compare your story to documents, to other witnesses, to surveillance they haven’t revealed. Any inconsistency becomes leverage, they’ll threaten to charge you with lying on top of the original crimes. In 2024’s PPP fraud cases, 89% of targets who participated in proffers ended up pleading guilty anyway – but they got better deals than those who stayed silent and got indicted. Your second choice: assert Fifth Amendment rights, say nothing, silence can’t be used against you in criminal proceedings, but prosecutors interpret it as confirmation you’re guilty and worth prosecuting, they’ll assume you have something to hide, assume cooperation is impossible, move toward indictment. Sometimes that’s the right move. The October 2024 crypto case shows the third path: pre-indictment negotiation, five targets got non-prosecution agreements by providing information about the scheme’s mastermind, their lawyers negotiated directly with prosecutors, trading valuable information for freedom, but this window is narrow, closes fast.

Your leverage evaporates.

Once the grand jury votes. Plea deals after indictment are harsher. Judges see you as someone who made prosecutors work.