For public corporations, in almost any corporate crisis corporate officers and managers have become slow-moving targets for prosecutors and regulatory enforcers seeking to criminalize business failure. In a pattern that repeats itself constantly, prosecutors use veiled or explicit threats of prosecution of a public corporation as a means to compel the corporation to "offer up" one or more corporate leaders as "scapegoats" for prosecution, in order to save the corporation (or those remaining in control of the company) from being indicted for any crime. Ironically, the corporate officer is surrounded by lawyers, but none have the officer's interests as their primary concern.

Professionals in health care, legal, financial, accounting and private businesses and other regulated fields are in much the same boat. They may be in a confrontation with investigators and prosecutors who are only looking to find fault, often in disregard of the accepted standards and practices in the business and the good faith of the actors, or who rely for their understanding on disgruntled former employees, or competitors, or a real criminal who is trying to paint others as wrongdoers to earn credits for "cooperation."

With so much at stake, and with the possible penalties so high, even for the most innocent person, there is almost irresistible pressure to plead guilty to some offense, and "cooperate" (which usually means accusing others of wrongdoing), in order to avoid or minimize possible jail time.

At Harrington & Mahoney we have experience defending corporate officers and professionals who find themselves in such a terrifying a fight with prosecutors. We understand the process by which corporate officers and professionals are used as scapegoats in order to create the appearance that larger perceived problems, in business, markets and industries, are being dealt with by the government. In such cases the government is often too little concerned with the collateral damage caused by its display of power, directed at a few "white collar" defendants (and their families and employees and investors and shareholders, etc.)

From the largest corporate fraud trials — like the "Adelphia" trial in New York City in 2004 — to "small" investigations involving a single questioned transaction, we have helped our clients to survive and succeed under these enormous pressures. We help make the law, the real facts — and innocence — matter, in "white collar" cases when all the world is interested only in appearances.