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Maryland Federal Fraud: Common Questions & Misconceptions

Maryland federal fraud charges are incredibly serious. The prosecution and defense of these cases are different from local or state-level fraud charges because these cases involve the federal government. In addition, when searching for a defense lawyer for such a case, it is important to hire an attorney who is admitted to practice in federal court. An experienced Maryland federal fraud lawyer at our firm is not only qualified, but has knowledge of how these cases are handled by the prosecution.

Questions When Facing Maryland Federal Fraud Charges

One of the first questions that clients facing federal fraud charges ask their attorney is, “Am I going to go to jail?” First of all, a Maryland federal fraud lawyer’s first priority, and what they work on 24-hours a day, is to try and 1.) keep you from being charged at all, and 2) keep you out of jail. During the investigation process and the subsequent case process, these two questions are at the forefront of a lawyer’s mind.

Misconceptions of Maryland Federal Fraud Charges

One of the most important misconceptions about government fraud cases is to assume that, “I didn’t do anything wrong, so I need to talk to the government investigator and just tell them I didn’t do anything wrong, and that will resolve it.” That is very unlikely to ever resolve the problem. For example, if the government is executing a search warrant on your place of business, they believe you’ve done something illegal. You can’t talk your way out of that, and especially not on the day that a search warrant is executed. Hire a Maryland federal fraud attorney with professional experience dealing with these issues to help you mitigate damage.

What You Should Do

When you are being investigated or questioned by police in relation to federal fraud charges, it is beneficial to your case to keep quiet and not say a word. Typically, the government executes search warrants between 5:00 and 7:00 in the morning. They do that because they want to surprise the majority of people, and they want them to be more susceptible to being interviewed. They want to keep them away from a potential Maryland federal fraud lawyer because attorneys are not often as available between 5:00 and 7:00 in the morning. The investigators come with a script of questions to ask, many times prepared by federal prosecutors. If the government executes a search warrant at your home, they have an argument to make that the interview scenario was voluntary. Prosecutors will argue that you submitted to the interview and questions voluntarily, with the argument that you were in your home and because you were not in custody.

Federal fraud lawyers in Maryland know the reality is that people, when they’re faced with armed investigators or armed law enforcement agents ransacking their house, are much more susceptible to being interviewed. The important thing in these cases is to be quiet, to not say anything because you’ll likely only hurt yourself, even if you’re giving completely innocent explanations. Often, agents are asking questions at 6:00 in the morning about transactions that occurred five years ago. It is very difficult for someone to accurately remember a very specific action or even that happened years ago when asked about it out of the blue. Regardless of your answer, there is no need to unknowingly shed poor light on your case by answering those questions. Therefore, people should maintain their silence and try to contact a Maryland federal fraud lawyer as soon as possible.

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