Embezzlement charges in New York are most often pursued by the district attorney at the state level, but could also be pursued by the US attorney on the federal level as well, depending on the specific case. In pursuing these types of cases, the district or US attorneys are likely to subpoena documents such as the person’s bank accounts and any company bank accounts. Additionally, they may draft up a search warrant to go to the individual’s house or place of business to get things that may hold information such as a person’s computer, cell phone, laptops, or IPads.
Additionally, because these charges are sometimes initiated by employers, there is often internal documentation, computer access records, invoices, and other records of where the money is coming and going. However, regardless of how the investigation is composed, it is always important that a New York Embezzlement lawyer is consulted as soon as an individual believes they may be under investigation. An experienced lawyer in these cases can help protect the rights of the individual accused and ensure that they do not do or say anything that could end up having a negative impact at trial.
Agencies Commonly Involved in InvestigationsOn the state level in no particular order, there is the district attorney’s office, the attorney general’s office, the NYPD, the state police, the county police, and the local police. At the federal level, there is the US attorney’s office, the FBI, if it involves more treasury-related things, it could involve the treasury department, the secret service, and the postal inspectors because things are done by mail. They bring a lot of different agencies into these types of investigations.
But most of these, unless they are big, big, big giant numbers and by giant numbers, it is in the multiple millions, very often a $1 million, $2 million, or $300,000.00, those are state cases.
If it’s a $2 or million fraud, one might find the federal government involved in it and one can find the states too, but very often in New York a $50,000.00 theft is not going to make the US attorney’s office get involved. This does not mean that the embezzlement of $50,000 is not serious because it is still a level C felony that can carry five to 15 years in prison, it simply means that the federal government typically only takes cases where the dollar amount is much higher.
Gaining Access to An Individual’s RecordsWhen an embezzlement investigation in New York is conducted, there are a number of things investigators can do to get access to an individual’s records. For one, they could subpoena the person’s bank account, accounts or credit card records, they could also subpoena the person’s phone records, and any IP information in terms of logging in and where it is coming from. The search warrant comes into play if they want to go into the person’s email account and find out whom the person is emailing and what the person is doing, they may have to get a search warrant to do that.
Furthermore, if they want to go to the person’s home and go into the person’s computers, they are going to need a search warrant. They may get a search warrant, number one, to go to the person’s house and a search warrant, number two, once they seize the person’s computers to get inside the computers, cell phones, and safety deposit boxes.
Search Warrants in Embezzlement CasesIt depends on how it is drafted, but generally, they do not know what is going to be in there. They get four computers; they did not know there would be four computers so they have then get a search warrant to get into the computer, but that is easy. Once a person has a computer, it is easy and with white collar crimes and the nature of computers, it is not like if someone has a gun in the house and three weeks later and months later, the DA wants to do a search warrant; it is too late because the months have gone by. These computer data, even if you delete it, it sits there forever.
If is drafted in the right way, it should be pretty easy for a prosecutor to get access to iPhones, a person can get access to laptops and computers; it is that easy because that information never dies.
That is getting them into the person’s apartment even if someone said they saw $30,000.00 in cash there, even a month ago. They cannot get into the apartment because it is weeks and months later, but if law enforcement basis their search warrant andnexus to computers and the like, then law enforcement can go say, “We are going to get the computers,” and when they get the computers, “Oh look what else we found.”