Los Angeles Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer

Los Angeles Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer

The FBI showed up at your door in Los Angeles. Or you opened a letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office informing you that you’re a target of a federal grand jury investigation. Your case isn’t being handled by the LAPD or the LA County District Attorney anymore. You’re in the federal criminal justice system now—and that changes everything.

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, with over 40 years of combined experience defending clients in federal criminal cases. When you’re facing federal charges in Los Angeles, you need attorneys who understand that federal court operates under completely different rules, procedures, and stakes than state court. What actually happens in YOUR situation. What choices YOU have right now. What outcomes YOU can expect when federal prosecutors in the Central District of California build a case against you.

Why You’re In Federal Court

When the agents who knocked on your door showed FBI badges instead of LAPD badges, that wasn’t random. Federal jurisdiction gets triggered by specific factors—drug quantities that exceed certain thresholds, interstate activity, federal property, federal officials involved, or crimes that cross state lines. Take drug cases: possession of $5,000 worth of drugs typically stays in LA County Superior Court. But federal charges apply in 15% of fentanyl cases, especially when amounts suggest distribution or when the drugs crossed state lines. The difference isn’t just semantics. It’s mandatory minimum sentences versus judicial discretion. Federal prosecution means your case gets handled by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which covers Los Angeles plus six other counties. Almost 180 federal prosecutors—called Assistant U.S. Attorneys—work in that office specializing in specific crimes. One prosecutor handles only healthcare fraud, another does nothing but child exploitation cases. They have resources state prosecutors can’t match: FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, ICE building cases for months or years before you know you’re under investigation. Constitutional protections matter most when you’re most unpopular—that’s not just philosophy, it’s reality in federal court. When federal prosecutors decide your case warrants their attention, they’ve already compiled evidence—wiretaps, financial records, cooperating witnesses, surveillance footage. By the time you receive that target letter or those agents knock, prosecutors believe they have enough to convict you. Federal conviction rates exceed 90%, not because federal prosecutors are better lawyers than state prosecutors, but because they only charge cases they’ve already built thoroughly. Your cousin’s DUI lawyer practices in LA County Superior Court five days a week. Federal court is a different universe. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure govern everything from discovery to trial. Brady obligations—prosecutors’ duty to turn over exculpatory evidence—operate differently. Jencks Act material, which requires prosecutors to produce witness statements, has no state equivalent. Even basic procedures like jury selection follow different protocols. Federal sentencing guidelines remove much of the judicial discretion that exists in state court. Judges calculate your sentence using a complex guideline system: base offense level for your crime, plus enhancements for specific conduct, minus any reductions for acceptance of responsibility or cooperation, cross-referenced against your criminal history category. The result is a guideline range that judges typically follow. Recent Supreme Court decisions made guidelines advisory rather than mandatory, but judges who depart from guidelines must justify their reasoning extensively to appellate courts reviewing their decisions.

What NOT to Do

The FBI agent said “we just want to clear some things up.” That’s the most dangerous sentence you’ll ever hear.

Talking to federal agents without counsel destroys federal cases more reliably than any other single mistake: anything you say becomes evidence, and lying to federal agents is a separate federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Not just perjury under oath—any false statement to any federal agent during any investigation creates criminal liability. Federal agents record everything. Unlike some state police interviews where documentation is spotty, federal investigations generate transcripts, recordings, and 302 reports summarizing every interaction. That “friendly conversation” where the agent said you weren’t under arrest? It’s memorialized in a report that prosecutors will use against you at trial.

Target letters typically give you 10 to 30 days to notify prosecutors whether you’ll testify before the grand jury. Don’t. Federal grand jury proceedings offer no attorney in the room with you, no judge to rule on objections, just you and prosecutors asking questions designed to lock you into statements they can use later.

What Happens Next

Your case will proceed through the United States District Court for the Central District of California. You’ll walk into either the First Street U.S. Courthouse at 350 W 1st Street or the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building at 255 E. Temple Street in Los Angeles.

The timeline you’re facing: Target letter arrives or arrest happens. Initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge within days. Detention hearing where that magistrate decides whether you wait for trial in custody or at home—and federal magistrates are far tougher than state judges on detention. Arraignment follows, where charges get formally read. Then discovery—but federal discovery isn’t like state court’s relatively quick process. Prosecutors might turn over thousands of pages of financial records, hundreds of hours of wiretap recordings, emails, text messages, bank statements going back years. Pretrial motions come next: motions to suppress evidence obtained through arguably unconstitutional searches, motions to dismiss charges for prosecutorial misconduct, motions to sever defendants or counts. Federal prosecutors use mandatory minimums as bargaining tools—they know you’re facing 10 years minimum if convicted at trial, so they offer 5 years if you plead guilty now. That’s why 97% of federal cases resolve through guilty pleas rather than trials.

The Sentencing Problem

Mandatory minimums eliminate discretion entirely. Congress set minimum sentences for specific federal crimes—drug quantities, firearm offenses, child exploitation crimes. Judge has no choice: 10-year mandatory minimum means 10 years minimum, period. The only escape valve is substantial assistance—cooperating with prosecutors to provide information about others, memorialized in a 5K1.1 motion that prosecutors file requesting a sentence below the mandatory minimum.

Take drug cases: federal drug quantity tables trigger mandatory minimums. Five kilos of cocaine means 10-year mandatory minimum. Fifty grams of methamphetamine means 10-year mandatory minimum. Those aren’t maximums—they’re floors below which judges cannot go absent substantial assistance motions.

When you need a Los Angeles federal criminal defense lawyer, you need attorneys who practice regularly in the Central District of California. Who know the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutors. Who understand federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums. Todd Spodek leads Spodek Law Group as a second-generation attorney who learned criminal defense from his father and has spent his entire career defending clients in high-stakes cases. Our team includes former prosecutors who understand how the federal government builds cases—they’ve been on the other side. Our experience handling high-profile cases demonstrates our ability to defend clients under intense scrutiny. Todd Spodek’s representation of Anna Delvey—a case that attracted national media attention and became a Netflix series—shows what happens when defense counsel doesn’t back down from difficult cases where public opinion runs heavily against the client. That’s precisely when constitutional protections matter most. We’re available 24/7 because federal arrests happen at any time—agents execute search warrants at 6 a.m., arrests occur on Friday evenings before holiday weekends, target letters arrive with tight deadlines.

If you’ve received a target letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, if federal agents contacted you, if you’re under federal investigation, or if you’ve been arrested on federal charges in Los Angeles, call us. 212-300-5196.