Professionals being charged with a white-collar offense are not only exposed to significant fines and jail time but if convicted, are likely to suffer permanent professional and reputational damage. Michael Cindrich appreciates the severity of such accusations and the collateral consequences and penalties associated with them. At the Law Offices of Michael E. Cindrich, we pay close attention to every detail, leaving no stone unturned. We frequently enlist skilled investigators as experts in the defense of our white-collar matters.

We defend our clients against all white-collar accusations. A nonviolent crime involving theft, deceit, concealment, subterfuge, or other fraudulent activity, often in a commercial, insurance, professional, or corporate context. White-collar crime encompasses various kinds of fraud, embezzlement, bribery, securities violations, tax evasion, unfair and deceptive practices, forgery, perjury, false claims, theft from the government, and computer crimes. Closely related are offenses resulting from violations of environmental, health, safety, and other regulations.

White-collar criminals are often those with business or professional backgrounds and white collar offenses often occur in business and professional contexts. Thus, white-collar crimes and regulatory offenses are of particular concern to civil practitioners advising business clients.

In California, white-collar allegations come in ten common categories:

  1. Theft (P.C. § 484)and embezzlement (P.C. § 503, et seq.);
  2. Misappropriation of public funds (P.C. § 424);
  3. Negotiable instrument offenses, such as passing fictitious instrument (P.C. § 476) and issuing checks to defraud (P.C. § 476a);
  4. Pyramid schemes (P.C. § 327);
  5. Money laundering (P.C. §§ 186.9, 186.10);
  6. Franchise Investment Law violations (Corp. C. § 31410 et seq.);
  7. Offenses of financial institutions, including false representations, misappropriations, improper loans, and various fraudulent acts against banks (Fin. C. §§ 750 et seq.), savings associations (Fin. C. §§ 5300 et seq.), credit unions (Fin. C. §§ 14050 et seq.), and industrial loan companies (Fin. C. §§ 18445 et seq.)
  8. General corporate law violations (Corp. C. §§ 2200 et seq.), securities and commodities offenses (Corp. C. §§ 25000 et seq.), including improper sales (Corp. C. § 25540), violation of broker requirements (same), unlawful issuance of shares (same), fictitious subscriptions (Corp. C. § 25541), false statements (same), unlawful dividends or distributions (same), and falsification of records (same).
  9. Tax offenses, including evasion, false returns and disclosures, and withholding violations. (Rev. C. §§ 19705, 19706.; and
  10. Unauthorized disclosure of financial institutions’ customer records (Govt. C. §§ 7460 et seq.)