Federal Fraud Defense

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Fraud is the busiest charge in the federal criminal system. The wire and mail fraud statutes are written so broadly that prosecutors can reach almost any scheme involving deception and money, and they pair those statutes with a long list of more specific fraud offenses. A federal fraud case is document-heavy, intent-driven, and often years in the making before anyone is charged. If you are under investigation or indictment, a federal fraud lawyer should be involved as early as possible.

Fraud defense is central to what we do at Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. We defend individuals and companies nationwide in wire, mail, bank, securities, healthcare, and other federal fraud matters. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, our principal attorney, practices exclusively in federal courts and agencies, and Best Lawyers in America named her the 2026 “Best Lawyer” in Appellate Practice — a fitting credential for a field the Supreme Court keeps redrawing. In every engagement, we hold the government to the law as it reads today: the U.S. Code, the United States Sentencing Guidelines, and the newest controlling decisions of the federal courts.

This page explains what federal fraud is, the statutes that define it, the offenses we defend, what prosecutors must prove, the penalties at stake, and how a defense takes shape. It is general legal information, not legal advice. If you face a federal fraud investigation or charge, we offer a paid, one-hour initial consultation to review your situation. This hub is part of our white-collar crime defense practice.

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Federal Fraud Lawyer Reviewing Financial Records At A Federal Criminal Defense Law Firm

Quick Answer

QuestionAnswer
What is federal fraud?A scheme to obtain money or property through deception, prosecuted under federal law — most often the wire, mail, or bank fraud statutes, or an offense-specific fraud statute.
What must the government prove?A scheme to defraud, a specific intent to defraud, a material misrepresentation, and a jurisdictional hook such as use of the wires, the mails, or a financial institution.
What penalties can apply?Many fraud statutes carry up to 20 years — up to 30 years where a financial institution is affected — plus fines, restitution, and forfeiture.
When should I hire a federal fraud lawyer?As soon as you learn of an investigation — a subpoena, a target letter, or an agent’s visit. The pre-charge stage is often decisive.
What does an initial consultation cost?Paid — one hour with our team, booked through our scheduling page.

Key Takeaways

  • Federal fraud is not one crime but a family of offenses, anchored by the broadly worded wire, mail, and bank fraud statutes.
  • Every fraud charge requires a specific intent to defraud — a deliberate plan to deceive, not a mistake, a bad outcome, or an aggressive but honest business judgment.
  • The misrepresentation must be material — capable of influencing the decision at issue. Materiality is a required element of the fraud statutes.
  • Federal fraud reaches schemes aimed at money or property; the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected attempts to stretch it to intangible interests.
  • The loss amount drives the sentence. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, how loss is defined and measured often matters more than the count of conviction.
  • Fraud cases are usually built quietly over months or years; the pre-indictment window is often the best opportunity to influence the outcome.
  • A single scheme can generate many counts, because each use of the wires or mails can be charged separately.

What Is Federal Fraud?

Federal fraud is the use of deception to obtain money or property and is prosecuted under federal law. The concept is old, and the core idea is simple — a scheme to cheat someone out of something of value — but the federal statutes that punish it are sweeping. Their reach comes from how they are built: the wire and mail fraud statutes criminalize any “scheme or artifice to defraud” carried out with a qualifying use of interstate wires or the mails. Because almost every modern transaction involves an email, a phone call, or a wire transfer, that jurisdictional hook is rarely hard for the government to satisfy.

That breadth is why fraud is the backbone of federal white-collar enforcement. The Department of Justice uses the general fraud statutes to prosecute conduct across every industry — finance, healthcare, real estate, government contracting, technology — and supplements them with offense-specific statutes for particular fields. But breadth is not the same as ease of proof. Each fraud charge still requires the government to prove a genuine scheme, a guilty intent, and a material deception, and each of those requirements is a place where a defense can take hold.

The Core Federal Fraud Statutes

Three statutes do most of the work in federal fraud enforcement, and they appear in a large share of fraud indictments:

  • Wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343) — the federal fraud workhorse. It reaches any scheme to defraud carried out using interstate or international wire communications, including phone calls, emails, text messages, and electronic transfers.
  • Mail fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1341) — the older sibling of wire fraud, reaching schemes that use the Postal Service or a private commercial carrier.
  • Bank fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1344) — schemes to defraud a financial institution, or to obtain a bank’s money or property by false pretenses.

These statutes are so flexible that the government frequently charges them alongside, or instead of, an offense-specific statute. A healthcare scheme, a mortgage scheme, or an investment scheme will often be indicted as wire fraud even though a more specialized statute also applies. Understanding which statute the government has chosen — and why — is the starting point of a defense, because the elements and the penalties differ.

Beyond the three general statutes, Congress wrote offense-specific fraud statutes that carry their own elements and, sometimes, a heavier mental-state requirement. Securities fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1348, enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reaches schemes connected to the purchase or sale of securities and carries a 25-year maximum. Health care fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1347 punishes schemes to defraud a health care benefit program, and the courts read it to require that the defendant acted knowingly and willfully — that is, knowing the claims were false. A billing error, a coding mistake, or a good-faith dispute about medical necessity is not health care fraud. These statute-specific elements are why we identify the exact charge before anything else; the defense to a § 1347 count is not the defense to a § 1343 count.

Time limits matter too. Most federal fraud charges carry a five-year statute of limitations, but the period stretches to ten years for frauds affecting a financial institution — and, under 2022 legislation, for Paycheck Protection Program and COVID-19 EIDL loan fraud. Pandemic-era cases will keep arriving for years, which makes the limitations analysis an early order of business in any fraud defense.

Federal Fraud Offenses We Defend

We defend the full range of federal fraud charges. Each offense below links to its own detailed guide.

Core fraud statutes

These are the broadly worded statutes that anchor most federal fraud cases:

Financial and investment fraud

These offenses involve securities, investments, lending, and financial markets:

Healthcare and government program fraud

These offenses involve federal healthcare programs and public funds:

Other fraud offenses

We also defend these additional federal fraud charges:

Fraud charges also connect to other parts of our practice. They are routinely paired with conspiracy and aggravated identity theft counts, and they frequently lead to money laundering and federal tax exposure.

How the Supreme Court Redrew the Fraud Map (2023–2025)

For decades, the federal fraud statutes only grew. That era is over. In Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023), the Supreme Court held that wire fraud protects traditional property interests alone, killing the “right to control” theory under which the loss of useful economic information counted as property fraud. The decision reaffirmed a hard limit: however dishonest the conduct, there is no federal fraud unless money or property was the object of the scheme.

That property line runs through the Court’s other recent fraud cases. In Kelly v. United States, 590 U.S. 391 (2020) — the “Bridgegate” prosecution — the Court reversed wire and program-fraud convictions because the object of the scheme was the exercise of regulatory power over bridge lanes, not the government’s money or property. And honest-services fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1346 remains confined to bribe-and-kickback schemes after Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358 (2010), with Percoco v. United States, 598 U.S. 319 (2023), rejecting as unconstitutionally vague the theory that a private citizen owes the public honest services merely by wielding informal influence over government. Each decision tells the same story: the statutes punish schemes for money or property and the narrow honest-services category Congress preserved, and nothing more.

The Court drew the next line in Kousisis v. United States, 605 U.S. 114 (2025) — and this one favored the government. A defendant who wins a contract through material lies commits wire fraud even if the victim got full economic value, because the statute requires no net loss. But the Court was equally clear about the remaining safeguard: materiality of the falsehood is an element of, and a limit on, the federal fraud statutes. After Kousisis, materiality fights are the front line of fraud defense.

Two companion rulings matter in nearly every fraud indictment. Dubin v. United States, 599 U.S. 110 (2023), reined in aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A — the add-on count carrying a mandatory two-year consecutive sentence — holding it applies only where the misuse of another person’s identity is at the crux of the offense. And Thompson v. United States, 604 U.S. 408 (2025), held that 18 U.S.C. § 1014 punishes false statements, not statements that are misleading yet literally true. Together, these cases give the defense concrete tools: motions against overcharged § 1028A counts, materiality challenges, and property-object challenges that did not exist a few years ago.

Applied insight. Indictments drafted under the old assumptions still surface. We see fraud theories that quietly depend on a right-to-control framing, § 1028A counts where the identity use was incidental billing detail, and false-statement counts built on statements that were technically true. Each is a motion waiting to be filed — but only if the defense maps the charges against the current decisions.

What the Government Must Prove

Although the specific elements vary by statute, a federal fraud prosecution generally requires the government to prove each of the following beyond a reasonable doubt:

  • A scheme to defraud. A plan or course of conduct intended to deceive and to obtain money or property.
  • Intent to defraud. A specific intent to deceive — the defendant must have acted deliberately, not negligently or in good faith.
  • Materiality. The misrepresentation or omission must have been material — capable of influencing the decision of the person or institution it was directed to.
  • Money or property. The object of the scheme must have been money or property, not an intangible interest unconnected to property.
  • A jurisdictional hook. The scheme must have used the qualifying instrumentality — the interstate wires, the mails, or a financial institution.

Two of these elements deserve emphasis. In Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999), the Supreme Court confirmed that materiality is a required element of the mail, wire, and bank fraud statutes even though the statutory text does not use the word, and it defined a material falsehood as one with a natural tendency to influence the decision it was addressed to. And the Court has repeatedly insisted that federal fraud reaches schemes for money or property — rejecting efforts to extend it to intangible interests, such as a victim’s “right to control” its own assets. The money-or-property requirement has its own contours: in Shaw v. United States, 580 U.S. 63 (2016), the Court held that a scheme to take funds from a depositor’s account is also a scheme to defraud the bank that holds them, and that bank fraud requires no proof that the institution actually lost money. These limits matter because the government’s theory sometimes extends beyond the statutes’ actual reach.

Applied insight. Fraud cases are rarely won by disputing that a transaction happened — the records show that. They are won on intent. Aggressive optimism, an honest misjudgment, reliance on professionals, an industry practice, a disclosed risk that did not pan out — none of these is a scheme to defraud, and a defense built on that distinction from day one has somewhere to stand at trial.

Penalties and Sentencing in Fraud Cases

Federal fraud penalties are severe. Wire fraud and mail fraud each carry a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison — and that maximum rises to 30 years, with a fine of up to $1 million, when the fraud affects a financial institution or is connected to a federally declared major disaster or emergency. Bank fraud carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Convictions also carry mandatory restitution to victims and the criminal forfeiture of proceeds. Because each use of the wires or mails can be charged as a separate count, a single scheme can result in an indictment with a very large cumulative exposure.

In practice, though, the statutory maximum is rarely the number that matters. The sentence is shaped by the United States Sentencing Guidelines, and for fraud offenses, the dominant factor by far is the loss amount — the money the scheme caused or intended to cause. Since the Sentencing Commission’s 2024 amendment, the rule that loss means the greater of actual or intended loss sits in the text of Guideline § 2B1.1 itself, which keeps intended-loss theories squarely in play at sentencing even where no one lost a dollar. Additional adjustments follow from the number of victims, the use of sophisticated means, the defendant’s role, and the abuse of a position of trust. Because the federal system has no parole, a defendant serves the sentence imposed, less limited good-conduct credit. Our federal sentencing practice and our loss-calculation guide address the Guidelines analysis in depth.

Applied insight. In a fraud case, the loss figure is the sentence. Two defendants convicted under the same statute can face very different outcomes because the loss calculations diverge. How loss is defined — actual versus intended, gross versus net, the credits a defendant is entitled to against it — is frequently the most valuable work a defense lawyer does, and it begins long before sentencing.

How Federal Fraud Cases Are Investigated and Charged

Most federal fraud cases are investigated long before the target knows one exists. The work is done by agents — the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, the Postal Inspection Service, or an agency inspector general — working with a federal prosecutor and a grand jury. They gather records through grand-jury subpoenas, search warrants, and bank and email returns, and they interview witnesses. By the time a defense lawyer enters, the government has often spent a year or more building a documentary record, which is exactly why the pre-charge stage carries so much weight.

Where you stand in that investigation matters. Prosecutors classify the people they look at as targets, subjects, or witnesses, and a target letter or a grand-jury subpoena is a signal to take seriously, not to answer alone. Fraud investigations also frequently run in parallel with a civil enforcement action — an SEC case, a False Claims Act matter, or a regulatory proceeding — and there is no constitutional bar to the government pursuing both at once. That overlap creates real hazards: civil discovery can hand the government evidence it could not otherwise compel, and a statement made to settle a civil case can surface in the criminal one. Coordinating the criminal and civil exposure from the start is part of the defense.

The investigative stage is also where a defense can change the outcome most. Engaging early lets us test the government’s emerging theory, correct factual errors before they harden into an indictment, and, in the right case, present the reasons a prosecutor should decline or narrow the charges. Once a grand jury returns an indictment, that window has largely closed — so the sooner the analysis begins, the more room there is to influence where the case goes.

Defenses to a Federal Fraud Charge

There is no single defense to fraud; the right one depends on the statute, the records, and the government’s theory. Because every fraud statute requires a specific intent to defraud, the most common defenses attack intent and the other elements the government must prove:

  • Good faith. Good faith is a complete defense, because it negates the intent to defraud. An honest belief that conduct was lawful or that representations were true is incompatible with a deliberate plan to deceive — and the government, not the defendant, carries the burden of proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
  • Advice of counsel. A defendant who made full disclosure to a lawyer and acted in good-faith reliance on that lawyer’s advice can use it to negate intent. The defense is powerful but not free: invoking it waives the attorney-client privilege over the subject matter of the advice, so it has to be deployed deliberately.
  • No material misrepresentation. Materiality is an element of the mail, wire, and bank fraud statutes. A statement that could not have influenced the decision it was directed to — or one that was literally true, even if incomplete — is not a basis for fraud liability.
  • No money or property. If the object of the alleged scheme was something other than the victim’s money or property, the conduct falls outside the statutes, however dishonest it may have been. This is the defense the Supreme Court’s recent decisions revived.
  • Disputing the loss amount. Even where conviction is likely, the loss figure that drives the sentence is often contestable — actual versus intended loss, the credits a defendant is owed, and the causal link between the conduct and the claimed harm. In a fraud case, that fight can matter as much as guilt or innocence.

Building a Federal Fraud Defense

A federal fraud defense is an investigation in its own right. These cases rest on a documentary record — emails, contracts, financial statements, account records — and we work through that record in detail to understand what it actually shows and, just as important, what it does not. We test the government’s theory of intent, identify the good-faith explanations the evidence supports, and examine every element the prosecution must prove, including the often-overlooked questions of materiality and whether the object of the alleged scheme was truly money or property.

The defense also has to meet the case wherever it stands. During an investigation, that can mean pre-charge advocacy aimed at a declination or a narrower indictment. After charges, it can mean litigating motions, negotiating a resolution, or trying the case to a jury. And because the loss-driven sentence is so often what a client cares about most, we treat the loss analysis and the mitigation record as core defense work from the outset. Outcomes are never ours to promise; thoroughness is — every element, every count, and every dollar of claimed loss gets examined.

Applied insight. The most consequential fraud work often happens before an indictment exists. During the investigation, the government’s theory is still forming — and a defense that engages early can correct factual errors, narrow the scope, and sometimes persuade prosecutors not to charge. Once a grand jury returns an indictment, that window has largely closed.

Why Work With Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C?

Our firm pairs nationwide federal trial-court work with a deep appellate bench. Elizabeth Franklin-Best practices exclusively in federal courts and agencies; she holds admission to the United States Supreme Court, all twelve United States Circuit Courts of Appeals, and several United States District Courts, and she handles district-court matters across the country pro hac vice. Best Lawyers in America recognized her as the 2026 “Best Lawyer” in Appellate Practice, Chambers USA 2026 ranks her in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, and she wrote Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy.

The record behind that recognition is substantial. Across her career, Ms. Franklin-Best has handled more than 330 federal proceedings — including over 100 appeals — and has represented clients in all twelve federal circuits and at the United States Supreme Court. Her practice runs from white-collar trial defense and federal sentencing to a nationwide post-conviction docket, and that range is an asset in fraud cases, which routinely begin in a grand-jury investigation, turn on Guidelines loss math at sentencing, and may end in the court of appeals. When a fraud case raises a question the trial court gets wrong, we are equipped to preserve it and pursue it on appeal.

That bench matters in fraud work, where cases turn on intent, materiality, and statutory reach — the very questions the Supreme Court has spent the last three years deciding. We dig into the documentary record ourselves, rebuild the government’s loss math rather than accept it, and pressure-test every element of every count against the current case law, so the defense we present is the one this client’s facts actually support.

Talk With a Federal Fraud Lawyer

Fraud indictments are built from paper, and the government has usually been reading that paper for months before you learn a case exists. The earlier we start reading it too, the more of the story you control. Book a paid, one-hour initial consultation, and we will assess the government’s likely theory, your realistic exposure, and the strongest paths forward.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is federal fraud?

Federal fraud is the use of deception to obtain money or property and is prosecuted under federal law. It is most often charged under the wire, mail, or bank fraud statutes, or under an offense-specific fraud statute for a particular industry.

What are the main federal fraud statutes?

The core statutes are wire fraud (18 U.S.C. Section 1343), mail fraud (18 U.S.C. Section 1341), and bank fraud (18 U.S.C. Section 1344). They are supplemented by offense-specific statutes for healthcare, securities, and other fields.

Is fraud a federal or state crime?

It can be either. Fraud becomes a federal case when there is a federal hook — use of interstate wires or the mails, a financial institution, a federal program, or interstate commerce. We defend federal fraud cases nationwide.

What must the government prove in a fraud case?

The government must generally prove a scheme to defraud, a specific intent to defraud, a material misrepresentation, that the object was money or property, and a jurisdictional hook such as use of the wires or mails — all beyond a reasonable doubt.

What does scheme to defraud mean?

A scheme to defraud is a plan or course of conduct intended to deceive another and to obtain money or property. It does not have to succeed, but it must reflect a deliberate plan to deceive rather than an honest mistake.

What is materiality in a fraud case?

A misrepresentation is material if it has a natural tendency to influence, or is capable of influencing, the decision of the person or institution it was directed to. The Supreme Court has held that materiality is an element of the mail, wire, and bank fraud statutes.

What kinds of fraud does the firm defend?

We defend wire, mail, and bank fraud; securities, investment, and mortgage fraud; healthcare fraud and kickbacks; government contract and PPP loan fraud; bankruptcy, insurance, access-device, and cryptocurrency fraud.

What penalties do federal fraud convictions carry?

Many fraud statutes carry a maximum of 20 years in prison, rising to 30 years when a financial institution is involved. Convictions also bring fines, mandatory restitution, and forfeiture. The loss amount under the Sentencing Guidelines drives the actual sentence.

How does the government investigate fraud?

Fraud is investigated by agencies such as the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and inspectors general, using grand jury subpoenas, search warrants, and witness interviews. Investigations often run for months or years before any charges are filed.

Can a fraud case be resolved before charges are filed?

Sometimes. The pre-charge investigative stage is often the best opportunity to influence the outcome. Effective advocacy can persuade prosecutors to decline charges, narrow them, or resolve a matter civilly before an indictment is returned.

What are the defenses to a federal fraud charge?

Defenses include the absence of intent to defraud, good faith, the lack of a material misrepresentation, that the object was not money or property, that no scheme existed, and disputes over the loss amount that drives the sentence.

How much does an initial consultation cost?

The consultation is paid and runs a full hour. We use it to review the investigation or charges in confidence and lay out how a federal fraud defense would proceed in your specific situation.

Did the Supreme Court change federal fraud law recently?

Substantially. Ciminelli (2023) held that wire fraud reaches only traditional property interests, eliminating the right-to-control theory. Kousisis (2025) approved fraudulent-inducement prosecutions while stressing that materiality limits the fraud statutes. Dubin (2023) confined the aggravated identity theft add-on to cases where identity misuse is central, and Thompson (2025) held that misleading-but-true statements are not false statements under section 1014. These decisions shape charging, motions, and plea negotiations in current fraud cases.

How long does the government have to bring federal fraud charges?

Usually five years. The period extends to ten years for fraud affecting a financial institution and, under 2022 legislation, for PPP and COVID-19 EIDL loan fraud. When the clock started — and whether any count is time-barred — is a fact-specific question that deserves early analysis.

What is the difference between wire fraud and mail fraud?

They are nearly identical statutes. Both punish a scheme to defraud, and both require specific intent to defraud. The difference is the jurisdictional hook: wire fraud (18 U.S.C. Section 1343) covers schemes carried out by interstate wire — phone, email, or electronic transfer — while mail fraud (18 U.S.C. Section 1341) covers schemes that use the Postal Service or a commercial carrier. Many indictments charge both.

What is the advice of counsel defense in a fraud case?

It is a way to show you lacked intent to defraud. If you fully disclosed the relevant facts to a lawyer and acted in good-faith reliance on that lawyer’s advice, that reliance can negate the deliberate intent the government must prove. The defense has a cost: raising it waives the attorney-client privilege over the subject matter of the advice, so it must be used carefully.

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