Texas Theft & White Collar Crime Laws

Internal Corporate Investigations

You work for a large corporation and you recently found out that your corporation is conducting an internal investigation to determine whether or not there’s been wrong doing conducted at the corporation you work for. You’ve been asked to come in, make a statement to the corporate council or to an outside council and you’re told they’re there to help you. Should you make a statement? Should you sit down with them?

Hi, my name is Dan Cogdell. I’m a criminal lawyer here in Texas and I’ve been practicing law for 32 years here in the city of Houston. I see that situation with far too much regularity and frequency where there’s an internal corporate investigation to determine whether or not the corporation is guilty of a crime.

Giving Statements to Lawyers

They bring in an outside lawyer and a good corporate employee sits down and makes a statement to that outside council with the assurance that that outside council is there to help them and there to act as their lawyer. I have a news flash for you. That lawyer is not there to help you. That lawyer is there to help the corporation. Anything you tell that lawyer is admissible against you. It’s admissible against you in any proceeding. If that person is not a lawyer hired by you or retained by you or hired specifically to represent you, that lawyer is not your friend. He’s the friend of the corporation, he’s not the friend of the employee.

You Need Legal Representation

If you find yourself in the cross hairs of an internal corporate investigation you need to make sure that you have a lawyer there representing your interest, not the interest of the corporation. If we can help you, if you’re in that situation give us a call. We’ve done it over and over again. We can explain the pitfalls, we can explain the landmines, we can explain when it’s a good idea for you to make a statement and when it’s not. We can’t help you at all unless you give us a call. Thank you for listening.

By:Dan Cogdell

Acquittal in Enron Case

Let me tell you how I was able to get an acquittal for a woman in the Enron case who was charged with conspiracy, who was charged with mail fraud, who was charged with a wire fraud, who was charged with bank fraud.  Hello. My name is Dan Cogdell. I’m a lawyer here in Texas. I’ve been practicing criminal defense work for 32 years.

No Crime Was Committed

Here’s how we obtained a verdict of not guilty for that woman who was charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy.  We got the jury to understand first and foremost, she didn’t agree to commit any crime with any person at any time. She never met with anybody with the idea that she was going to commit a crime. She never took any act in furtherance of any crime.

Perspective

The second thing that we got the jury to understand is her world view from her perspective, what she was doing, what she was thinking, and what she was believing. It wasn’t about all these other people that were charging all these other crimes and even in the case that she was charged along with, we got the jury to understand it was about her world view and what she was thinking.

Simplicity

Lastly but not leastly, we got the jury to understand all of what I’ve just outlined to you by keeping it simple. We stayed away from fancy accounting terms. We stayed away from experts’ opinions. We stayed away from hyperbole and argument. We stuck with the facts. We kept them as simple and as clean and as straightforward as we can because that was the way that the jury could understand in fact that she was not guilty.

If you have questions, if you need help, if you need assistance, call me. I’m here to help you if I can. I’m here to assist you if we can. My name is Dan Cogdell. Thank you for listening.