If you're on our website, it's because you’re facing serious federal charges – and you realize this is not some minor hiccup. At Spodek Law Group, we know exactly what’s at stake. Your career, your family, your license, your reputation – everything is balancing on how this case unfolds. We’ve built our reputation on taking impossible cases head-on and flipping the script. Other firms avoid the hard cases. We thrive on them. Why? Because we have over 50 years of combined federal defense experience, and because we actually know how to navigate the federal system in Boston. We hire like rock stars, we train relentlessly, and we plan strategy down to the smallest detail because when the government comes at you, you don’t get second chances.

When you step into the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse, you’re in the center of the federal justice machine. This isn’t Suffolk Superior – the culture, the rules, the stakes, all different. The prosecutors are Assistant U.S. Attorneys backed by agencies like the FBI, DEA, ATF, and IRS. Judges like Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV enforce the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines like a roadmap – precise and unforgiving. To give you context, not long ago a Cambridge man was sentenced to decades behind bars for a Hobbs Act case, while another Boston defendant caught 51 months just for a firearms conviction. These aren’t random hypotheticals, these are real decisions handed down across the river in South Boston where Moakley Courthouse dominates the waterfront. You go in there, you better be ready.

Federal Criminal Charges in Boston

Boston’s federal dockets are consistently loaded. The U.S. Attorney's Office here pushes indictments for everything from wire fraud to narcotics conspiracies. We’ve defended clients under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (felon in possession of a firearm), 21 U.S.C. § 846 (drug conspiracy), 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (RICO), and even 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (Hobbs Act robbery). If your indictment cites one of these statutes, you need counsel who doesn’t just "know of them" – but has argued them in actual federal court before a jury and before a judge who won’t tolerate unprepared defense lawyers. This is about experience, not theory.

• Wire Fraud & Securities Fraud: Wall Street-style prosecutions in a city built on biotech, education, and finance.
• Healthcare Fraud: Boston has a massive hospital and medical research sector, making it a prime federal target.
• Drug Trafficking Conspiracies tied to the DEA – sweeping investigations stretching over years, involving fentanyl, cocaine, meth.
• Firearms Offenses, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), tied to “in furtherance of” language that can stack decades onto a sentence.
• RICO & Conspiracy: Multiple defendants, overlapping indictments, sometimes targeting gangs and sometimes white collar enterprises.
• Child Exploitation & Internet Crimes: Cases often pulled through ICE or Homeland Security investigations, with mandatory minimums that ruin lives permanently.

What most people don’t understand is that by the time you know you’re a target, the investigation has already been humming along for months, maybe years. FBI agents flipping cooperators, IRS digging into accounts, ATF tracing firearms logs, DEA inspecting wiretaps. And then one day – boom – indictment. The machinery of the government moves fast, and trying to play catch-up without an elite defense team is a mistake you can’t undo later. That’s why I tell people flat out: hire a law firm that gets it, because federal law practice is not state-level criminal law, period.

Federal vs State: The Critical Difference

I’ll be straight with you, the phone calls I get sound almost the same: “Maybe, maybe this stays in state court.” But federal is a whole seperate universe. In Middlesex Superior or Suffolk Superior, sometimes you have creative plea deals, probation, treatment programs, suspended sentences. In federal? Different. AUSAs have a mandate, the guidelines control the flow, mandatory minimums strip away flexibility. The difference is massive—probation versus decades behind bars. And frankly I’ve seen lawyers who thrive in state court get flattened in Moakley because they thought the rules were similar, they’re not. Not even close.

Think about it like this. Facing a Class B drug case in state court can be a mess, sure. But facing a multi-defendant indictment with 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) mandatory minimum triggers in Moakley is another dimension altogether. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has resources that dwarf the state DA. It’s not fair, but fairness isn’t the system we’re in. So the question becomes – do you want a defense that’s reactive or proactive?

Inside Moakley Courthouse

The John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse is beautiful from the outside – glass walls overlooking the Boston Harbor. Inside, for a defendant, it’s terrifying. The U.S. Marshals walk you through security, and the walls echo. Judges like Saylor, Gorton, Burroughs, Stearns all sit here. These judges know the law cold, they have no patience for games, and they enforce guidelines aggressively. The prosecutors? Smart, driven, well-funded. They bring cases with FBI case files the size of whole dining room tables. And juries? Boston juries are sharp, diverse, and skeptical. So strategy means everything. Because facts alone don’t win. Narrative, strategy, and confidence do.

And if you’re asking: “Who exactly is the top prosecutor in Massachusetts?” – it’s the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Right now, that office directs prosecutions across the state with coordination from FBI, DEA, ATF, IRS-CI, Homeland Security. Unlimited resources, years of prep, and a system that is not in your favor. That’s who you’re facing. That’s why you need us.

What Does a Federal Lawyer Cost?

Clients always want to know cost. The honest answer, it depends. A felon-in-possession under § 922(g) is not the same as a sprawling health care fraud across multiple states. You could be looking at $10,000 retainers, or six figures in complex multi-year litigation. That range is reality. But here’s the question: what’s your freedom worth? What’s your business worth? What are you willing to invest in your own defense? Because prosecutors are investing every dollar of the taxpayer budget against you. We don’t do cookie-cutter rates, we build defense contracts tailored to the stakes.

And yes, people ask all the time: “Can I represent myself pro se?” Don’t do it. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are a minefield. Discovery rules, pre-trial motions, suppression – you miss one deadline, you lose a defense forever. It’s not a game. No judge is going to walk you through it. Flying a commerical plane with no training makes more sense than trying to fight the DEA or FBI in court with Google searches. That’s just the truth.

Federal Sentencing Dynamics

Here’s where things get deadly serious: Sentencing. Federal sentences are controlled by the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, though technically “advisory,” judges in Boston lean heavily on them. Enhancements, specific offense characteristics, acceptance of responsibility – these add years to your life or cut them. We have had clients walk out with probation when the guidelines suggested prison, and clients otherwise facing decades but we worked it down to single digits. It requires more than knowledge, it requires advocacy.

• A § 924(c) firearms conviction stacked on top of a drug trafficking case can add an extra 5, 10, 20 years consecutively.
• Loss calculations in a fraud case – even “intended loss” – can turn a probation possibility into 12 years in prison.
• Drug quantity tables – 500 grams vs 5 kilos of cocaine – that one fact shifts a guideline from a handful of years to a mandatory minimum out of your control.

Our work in sentencing isn’t about accepting numbers at face value. We challenge the enhancements, we debate role adjustments, we argue about loss definitions, we bring forward mitigating factors. And beyond guidelines, we tell your story. Judges are human, and storytelling matters. Anna Delvey, Netflix, you know the case. Todd Spodek stood in national spotlight and defended her against federal-style allegations. Strategy, messaging, perception. That’s federal practice – not just law but narrative control. That’s what moves a judge, sometimes more than raw law does.

Why People Hire Us

Look, we don’t scare easy. We’ve handled cases with potential sentences of 50+ years. We’ve stood in Moakley with U.S. Marshals escorting defendants facing RICO indictments. We’ve handled quiet white collar cases where reputations were on the line but no press coverage – and then cases like Anna Delvey where the world was literally watching. We know both worlds. We’re loyal, we’re aggressive, and frankly, we win. We’ve handled cases that… look, the point is we win. Other firms back away. We don’t. That’s why clients call us nationwide.

Boston cases are unique. The biotech corridor, the financial services firms along Atlantic Ave, the drug pipelines coming up from New York through I-95. The federal government targets Boston for a reason – because the city is a national hub, and making examples here resonates. Whether you’re in Back Bay, Dorchester, Cambridge, or South Boston – if you’re in Moakley, the stakes are higher. So we bring national experience into local fights, and we do it relentlessly.

Act Fast

Here’s the truth: every day you wait, the government is pulling more together against you. Emails, bank records, wiretaps. The FBI doesn’t sleep, the DEA doesn’t stall, the IRS will find that paper trail. By the time indictment drops, they often already have their key witnesses lined up, their grand jury testimony secured, their narrative locked in. That’s why hiring us early matters. We sometimes intervene before indictment, negotiating with prosecutors, shaping the case before it’s even filed. That can be the difference between prison and dismissal. One decision: hiring us now vs later. That’s reality.

Call us. Don’t wait another day. Because once indictment is unsealed, your options shrink. Spodek Law Group is here 24/7. Federal criminal defense in Boston is not forgiving, and it’s not a place for inexperience. Call today. Protect your freedom, your family, and your life.