Below are frequently asked questions on building defense strategies for a government contracting fraud case. For more specific information regarding your case, contact a government contracting fraud lawyer today.
In these types of cases, it’s all about the documents. You want to take a look at the contracts. You want to see what was actually promised and then what the government alleges was not done. Then, you want to see through communications with your client whether the government perhaps misunderstands the nature of this business or whether there are legitimate explanations as to why this allegedly occurred which fall short of criminal conduct.
We will ask clients to tell me as much as they possibly can about their business. This is often a key tool that we have at our disposal. The more we can understand about the client’s business and what is considered industry standard for a particular area of work, the better we can offer alternative explanations for the alleged unlawful conduct, which again falls short of criminal conduct.
Clients, in the government contracting fraud context, generally have had no prior exposure or interaction with the criminal justice system. So, quite frankly, it’s concerning to the client that there is a possibility he/she could go to jail. In government contracting fraud cases, a trial is a long ways away even after an arrest has been made. The person has to be indicted by the grand jury and arraigned by the court. You have to go through a phase of discovery. Often there are large volumes of documents to review. There are all types of preliminary hearings, motions hearings and suppression issues that must be decided by the judge. With all of this in mind, perhaps there is a year or more from the time a person is arrested until the time of trial.
Therefore, the defendants in government contracting fraud cases are often released from custody pending trial, depending on whether violence is alleged and/or the client’s prior criminal record, if any. You usually don’t have a situation where the person is incarcerated this entire time while the case is pending because these defendants are usually business people who often have no prior criminal convictions and are often very tied to the community. Thus, many times the court will not view them as a risk of flight.
In a very real sense, managing all the documents is the most challenging part. In a government contracting fraud case there are sometimes a million plus documents. When you’re in that situation, it can be beneficial to have a lawyer or law firm that is used to working with databases and various software which can assimilate these documents. These computer programs can put the documents together in such a way that can allow the defense attorney to craft an aggressive defense for the charges against you.