Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the reality of federal cooperation - not the sanitized version defense attorneys present at first meetings, not the hopeful fiction prosecutors dangle as bait, but the actual truth about what happens when you decide to help the government build cases against other people.
Most people walk into a federal case thinking cooperation is a negotiation. You have information. They want information. You trade information for freedom. Logical, right? Transactional. Like any other deal.
That belief will destroy you. Cooperation with federal prosecutors is not a negotiation. It is a one-way transfer of power where you surrender everything - your information, your leverage, your Fifth Amendment rights, your future - to prosecutors who have absolute discretion over whether to reward you, zero legal obligation to give you anything in return, and who will use your own words against you in ways you never imagined possible.
The Question Everyone Gets Wrong
Heres the question most people ask: "Will cooperation help my case?"
Wrong question. The right question is: "What am I giving up, what am I getting in return, and who controls whether I actualy receive it?"
Lets start with what most people dont know. Only 9.9% of federal defendants nationally receive substantial assistance departures. Thats the official number from the U.S. Sentencing Commission's 2024 Sourcebook. Nine point nine percent. Meaning over 90% of people who cooperate - who proffer, who testify, who help the government - receive either nothing or far less then they expected.
Still want to cooperate? Read that number again. 9.9%.
That 90% who got nothing - they all thought they were making a deal too. They all thought their information was valuable. They all thought prosecutors would reward them. They thought wrong. And by the time they realized it, they had already surrendered everything.
What "Queen for a Day" Actually Means
Prosecutors will offer you something called a proffer session. They call it "Queen for a Day." Sounds almost friendly. Like your cooperating and they're grateful for it.
Stop.
A proffer session is not protection. It is a mechanism for extracting maximum information from you while maintaining maximum prosecutorial flexibility to use that information against you. The "Queen for a Day" agreement - that document you sign thinking it protects you - contains exceptions that swallow the rule.
Heres how it actualy works. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 410, your proffer statements generaly cannot be used against you at trial. Sounds good. But here's were people get destroyed:
Exception 1: Derivative Use. The government cannot use your exact words directly. But they CAN use your words to find new evidence. They follow your leads, develop new witnesses, discover documents you mentioned - and all of that new evidence is fully admissible against you. You gave them the roadmap to your own conviction.
Exception 2: Impeachment. If your case goes to trial and you testify - saying anything inconsistent with your proffer - prosecutors can use your proffer statements to destroy your credibility in front of the jury. Youve basicly eliminated any defense that contradicts what you told them.
Exception 3: Sentencing. This is the one nobody tells you about until its too late. The proffer agreement protects against direct use at trial. It provides absolutly no protection at sentencing. And under federal sentencing guidelines, everything you admitted during your proffer can be used to calculate your offense level. The more honestly you cooperated, the higher your guidelines range, the more prison time you face.
Think about that. The more you help them, the more ammunition they have to send you away longer.
The 9.9% Reality Nobody Mentions
Todd Spodek explains this to clients like this: the federal cooperation system is designed to extract maximum value from defendants while maintaining maximum prosecutorial discretion over rewards.
Only the United States Attorney can file a 5K1.1 motion - that's the substantial assistance motion that lets judges sentence you below guidelines. Defense attorneys cannot request it. Judges cannot order it. If the prosecutor decides not to file it - for any reason, or for no reason at all - you have almost no recourse.
Most cooperation agreements include language stating the government has "sole discretion" over whether to file a 5K1.1 motion. Sole discretion. Not "will file if you cooperate." Not "must file if you provide substantial assistance." Sole. Discretion. Meaning the prosecutor wakes up on sentencing day and decides whether your cooperation was good enough. There not required to agree with you. Their not required to explain themselves. Their word is final.
You could cooperate perfectly. You could testify truthfully. You could help convict twenty people. And the prosecutor could decide your assistance wasnt substantial enough for a 5K1.1 motion. What happens then?
Nothing. You get sentenced. Full guidelines. All those proffer admissions used to calculate your offense level. Every bit of leverage surrendered. No reduction.
Heres a real example. Caroline Ellison cooperated against Sam Bankman-Fried in the FTX case. She testified so effectivley that Judge Lewis Kaplan said he had "never seen a cooperator quite like Ms. Ellison" - her testimony contained no errors or inconsistencies. Perfect cooperation. By any measure, the best possible cooperator.
Her sentence? Two years in federal prison. Handed down September 2024.
She faced over 100 years exposure. She cooperated perfectley. She still went to prison. Because judges have no obligation to follow 5K1.1 recommendations. In high-profile cases, "general deterrence" means even star cooperators get sentenced to send a message.
How Prosecutors Use Your Own Words Against You
Lets talk about the proffer trap in practical terms. You sit down with prosecutors. You tell them everything. You think your building trust, showing good faith, demonstrating you can be a valuable witness.
What your actualy doing is handing them a detailed confession that they will use at your sentencing to maximize your prison time.
Heres the mechanism nobody explains clearly. Federal sentencing works on an offense level calculation. The higher your offense level, the longer your guidelines range, the more prison time you face. That offense level is calculated based on relevant conduct - including conduct you admit to during cooperation.
So you proffer. You tell them about every deal you made, every transaction you participated in, every person you worked with. Because your cooperating. Because honesty is what they want.
Then sentencing comes. The prosecutor files a 5K1.1 motion recommending a below-guidelines sentence. Good news, right? But here comes the probation officer with the presentence report. And in that report, every single admission you made during your proffer is used to calculate your offense level. The loss amount - based on your admissions. The number of victims - based on your admissions. The role enhancement - based on your admissions.
Your guidelines range isnt 57-71 months anymore. Its 151-188 months. Because you told them everything.
Yes, the 5K1.1 motion gets you below 151 months. But "below 151 months" could still be 80 months. Could be 100 months. The judge has discretion. And your starting point is now massively higher then if you had said nothing.
At Spodek Law Group, weve seen this play out hundreds of times. The cooperator who thought they were getting probation gets sentenced to four years. The cooperator who expected two years gets seven. Because the cooperation raised their floor by giving prosecutors evidence they didnt have before.
The Social Price of Cooperation
The legal consequences are brutal. But the social consequences can destroy your life even more completley.
When you cooperate, you become a government witness. Your testifying against people - often people you worked with, people you considered friends, sometimes family members. Those relationships are over. Permanantly.
Word spreads. In your industry, in your community, among mutual friends. You cooperated. You snitched. You turned on your own people. The specific facts dont matter - whether your cooperation was justified, whether the people you testified against deserved it, whether you had any choice. The label sticks.
Your reputation is destroyed in ways a prison sentence alone would not accomplish. A person who goes to prison and serves their time can recover. They did wrong, they paid the price, they moved on. But a cooperator? That follows you. Former colleagues wont work with you. Industry contacts disappear. Business opportunities evaporate.
And the people you helped convict? They have families. Associates. Friends who remember. Even after you serve whatever sentence you receive, even years later, there are people who view you as the person who destroyed their father, their husband, their business partner.
Witness protection exists for a reason. The U.S. Marshals have relocated over 19,250 witnesses since 1971. Thats 19,250 people whose cooperation was so dangerous to them that they had to abandon their identities, their careers, their communities - everything they built - to start over with nothing.
Most cooperators dont qualify for witness protection. They just live with the consequences. Changed careers. Lost marriages. Estranged children. Communities that remember what they did.
The Process Nobody Explains In Advance
Most people who decide to cooperate dont understand what their actually signing up for. Its not one meeting. Its not one decision. Cooperation is a years-long commitment that prosecutors can extend basicly indefinitely.
Heres what actualy happens. First comes the proffer session. You sit in a room with prosecutors and federal agents for hours - sometimes days across multiple sessions. They ask you about everything. Not just the conduct their investigating. Everything you know. Everyone you worked with. Every conversation you remember. Every document you touched. They take notes. They record. They compare your statements to documents they already have.
Then come the debriefings. Months of debriefings. Every time prosecutors prepare for a trial or grand jury presentation involving anyone you might know, they bring you back. New questions. New areas. Things you thought were irrelevant become central. Things you forgot about suddenly matter.
Then comes grand jury testimony. You testify under oath in front of a grand jury. Everything you say is transcribed. Prosecutors use your testimony to indict other people. Now those other people know your cooperating - their defense attorneys receive transcripts. Word spreads.
Then come the trials. You testify at trial against the people you implicated. Defense attorneys cross-examine you for hours. They attack your credibility. They highlight your crimes. They call you a liar whos only testifying to save yourself. Jury hears all of it. The people your testifying against sit twenty feet away, staring at you.
And the whole time - through proffers, debriefings, grand jury appearances, trials - your waiting for sentencing. Your sentence gets postponed while prosecutors evaluate whether your cooperation is "substantial" enough. Could be one year. Could be three years. Could be longer. Your life is frozen while you wait to find out if you cooperated enough.
During that entire period, you cant mess up. If you lie - even accidentally, even from imperfect memory - prosecutors can revoke your cooperation agreement. If you commit any new offense - even a traffic violation in some agreements - cooperation revoked. If you refuse to testify at any proceeding prosecutors designate - revoked. If anything you said turns out to be inconsistent with other evidence - even if you were telling the truth - your in trouble.
The leverage you thought you had when you started cooperating? Gone. Prosecutors now control your entire life. They decide when you testify, where you testify, what your asked about. They decide when your sentencing happens. They decide whether your cooperation qualifies as "substantial." You surrendered that control the moment you started talking.
And heres the part that breaks people. Sometimes cooperation takes so long that by the time sentencing comes, judges have rotated. Prosecutors have changed. The person who promised you a favorable recommendation might be in a different office now. The judge who seemed sympathetic at earlier hearings might have been replaced. Your dealing with people who didnt make those original promises.
Cooperation doesnt end until prosecutors say it ends. And they have every incentive to keep you available as a witness for as long as possible.
When Cooperation Makes Sense - And When It Destroys You
Cooperation isn't always wrong. But it requires timing, leverage, and legal strategy that most desperate defendants dont have.
Heres when cooperation can work: When you have information the government genuinley needs and cannot get elsewhere. When your attorney has negotiated a specific, written agreement spelling out exactly what cooperation requires and exactly what you receive. When the 5K1.1 motion is guaranteed, not discretionary. When your attorney has leverage to walk away if terms arent acceptable.
Heres when cooperation destroys you: When you rush to cooperate out of desperation before understanding your leverage. When you proffer before any agreement about what you receive. When you accept "sole discretion" language without understanding what it means. When your information isnt unique - meaning prosecutors can get it from someone else whos also desperate to cooperate.
The timing matters enourmously. Early in an investigation, before charges are filed, you have maximum leverage. Prosecutors need information to build their case. If you have what they need, you can negotiate real guarantees.
After indictment? Your leverage is diminished. After conviction? Almost gone. The window for meaningful cooperation closes faster then most people realize.
Consider Jose Uribe in the Senator Menendez bribery case. He cooperated. He testified. In October 2025, he was sentenced to "time served" - essentially no additional prison time. That sounds like cooperation working. But Uribe had information prosecutors desperatley needed about a sitting U.S. Senator. His leverage was enormous. Most defendants dont have that kind of leverage.
Compare to Caroline Ellison. She also had enourmous leverage - she was central to the FTX case. She cooperated perfectley. And she still got two years. Different judge, different circumstances, different outcome.
Thats the reality of cooperation. Its not a formula. Its not predictable. You can do everything right and still get sentenced to years in prison. Or you can get lucky. The system doesnt promise fairness. It promises prosecutorial discretion.
What We Tell Clients Facing This Decision
At Spodek Law Group, when clients ask whether they should cooperate, Todd Spodek always starts with the same question: "What do you have, what do they need, and what are you willing to lose?"
Because cooperation means loss. Loss of information you can never un-disclose. Loss of the Fifth Amendment protection you surrender when you speak. Loss of relationships with everyone you implicate. Loss of control over your own narrative.
Sometimes that loss is worth it. Sometimes cooperation is the only path to a survivable outcome. Sometimes the government has so much evidence that going to trial means decades in prison, and cooperation means something less.
But cooperation should never be the first move. It should be the last move, after every other option has been evaluated, after your attorney understands exactly what leverage exists, after the terms are negotiated in writing.
Never proffer without knowing what your getting. Never sign a "sole discretion" agreement without understanding you might get nothing. Never assume prosecutors will reward you just because you helped them.
The federal system processes over 80,000 cases per year. You are not special to them. Your cooperation is one of thousands they receive. Unless you have something they genuinley cannot get elsewhere, your leverage is minimal.
If your reading this at 2am because federal agents knocked on your door, or because you received a target letter, or because you know an indictment is coming - dont make decisions based on panic. The cooperation question requires strategic thinking when your brain wants to do anything except think strategicly.
Call us at 212-300-5196. Not to start cooperating. Not to surrender. To understand your options before you give up the leverage you might not know you have.
The 9.9% who receive substantial assistance departures? They had experienced federal defense attorneys who understood how this system actually works. The 90% who got nothing or less then expected? Many of them cooperated on their own, or with attorneys who didnt understand the terrain.
Federal prosecutors are profesionals who do this every day. Theyve conducted thousands of proffer sessions. Theyve seen every type of defendant, every type of information, every negotiating tactic. You walking in unprepared isn't a fair fight. Its a surrender.
The question isn't whether to cooperate. The question is whether cooperation serves YOUR interests - not just the government's interests with a small discount for you. Those are different questions with different answers.
Most people make this decision under maximum stress with minimum information. Thats exactly how prosecutors want it. Scared defendants make poor decisions. Desperate defendants give away leverage. Uninformed defendants sign agreements they dont understand.
You get one shot at this. Make sure you understand what your giving up before you give it.
