If I'm Being Investigated For A White Collar Crime, When Should I Get A Lawyer?

Prosecutions for white-collar crimes in Massachusetts usually result from a long-standing investigation. Very often, you don't even know you're being investigated until the police show up at your door with what I like to call the Commonwealth bracelets of shame. If you get any hint that there is an investigation or an allegation that you did something illegal, that would be a white collar crime: that moment is the moment you should pick up the phone and contact an experience attorney because what happens during that investigation is going to play a big part in what happens with that prosecution.

Will I Go To Jail In Massachusetts For A White Collar Crime?

Many people think that because it's called white-collar crime, it's not violent, there's no way of going to jail, even if convicted. They are wrong. You can go to jail for committing a white-collar crime. White-collar crime is a headache, basically. It involves things like money laundering, the pyramid scheme that we hear about regarding Bernie Madoff, embezzlement, all that. The facts and circumstances will play into what the judge wants to do as a sentence, as well as your attorney, and what that attorney presents to the court and to the prosecution on your behalf, to determine whether or not, if convicted, you should go to jail.

Is White Collar Crime Prosecution On The Rise In Massachusetts?

There's two words to consider regarding white-collar crime these days. Bernie Madoff. Now that's an extreme case, and it's a case that's beyond Massachusetts, it's international. But the bottom line is that those cases become more and more important to prosecution, particularly federal prosecution. So the fact is that if there is a suspicion of white-collar crime taking place, it is very likely that there is going to be a prosecution involved. So just on the basis of that, there is a rise for those types of prosecutions.