Bank fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, and a number of other financial crimes are usually considered “white-collar” crimes.

White-collar crimes can be trivial offenses or quite serious matters, but convictions for the most egregious white-collar crimes are punishable by decades-long sentences in federal prison.

In some cases, an offender’s property can also be seized by the government to pay back the crime victims for their losses.

White-collar crimes are not violent, but that doesn’t mean there are no victims.

White-collar crimes can cause victims to lose their homes or their savings, can keep a family from being able to send a child to college, and can even make it difficult for victims to pay their medical bills.

White-collar crime costs the United States more than $300 billion a year, and the actions of white-collar criminals sometimes hurt all of us.

In March, for example, 51-year-old Aaron Wider was sentenced by a federal court in Central Islip to twelve-and-a-half years in prison for his role in a plan to swindle banks by obtaining mortgages fraudulently.

In a four-week trial in 2016, federal prosecutors charged that Wider’s scheme inflated property values across Long Island, contributing to the real estate market’s eventual bust and Long Island’s plethora of “zombie” homes.

These are homes that residents abandon – usually after receiving a foreclosure notice – which then deteriorate and languish, sometimes for months, until the foreclosure is complete.

WHY WAS AARON WIDER CONVICTED?

From 2003 to 2008, Aaron Wider headed the HTFC Corporation mortgage bank located in Garden City. While HTFC was a residential mortgage originator, it did not fund the mortgages itself and instead relied on “warehouse” lenders for mortgage funds.

Wider was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud for defrauding those warehouse lenders out of more than $30 million in mortgage proceeds.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt also ordered Wider to serve five years on supervised release and to pay $22 million in restitution to victims, although Judge Spatt acknowledged that Wider currently has no financial resources.

The federal Bank Fraud Statute of 1984 spells out what constitutes bank fraud: check kiting and forging, unauthorized use of automated teller machines (ATMs), credit card fraud, non-disclosure on loan applications, and diversion of funds.

Bribery, money laundering, and passing bad checks may also constitute bank fraud. Because banks are federally insured, bank fraud is a federal offense.

Wider could have been sentenced to thirty years in federal prison – the maximum sentence for bank fraud. That’s what Eastern District Assistant U.S. Attorney Artie McConnell asked for, saying that Wider’s conduct was “brazen” and adding that, “Long Island became the epicenter of zombie houses because of people like Aaron Wider.” Wider and his attorney made no comment beyond saying that Wider intends to appeal the conviction.

After Wider had been sentenced, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Bridget Rohde said, “Aaron Wider perpetrated a massive mortgage fraud scheme, the effects of which are still felt to this day by financial institutions and homeowners.

Today’s sentence sends a strong message that those who manipulate and abuse the lending process will be held accountable.”

HOW DID THE FRAUD SCHEME WORK?

At Wider’s trial, the government presented evidence that Wider and his associates purchased Long Island houses and then used inflated assessments to sell the homes to an associate at the inflated prices.

They then used the inflated prices to obtain falsely overvalued mortgages and pocketed the difference between the real and inflated prices, according to prosecutors.

Here’s an example: One associate of Wider purchased a property in Massapequa in 2007 for $450,000, transferred it to a trust and resold it the same day for $800,000.

All of the properties ended up in foreclosure, leaving investors and banks on the hook after the real estate crash of 2008.

Essentially, white-collar crimes are violations of trust.

The most frequent kinds of fraud in the state of New York include mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, real estate fraud, and healthcare fraud. Insurance fraud and identity theft are also on the increase.

In a white-collar case, a good defense attorney works first to have the charge reduced or dismissed; sometimes, a charge can be dismissed based on an out-of-court settlement with the alleged victim.

In other circumstances, the best conclusion may be a reduced sentence after payment of restitution.

IF YOU ARE ACCUSED OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME, WHAT IS YOUR RECOURSE?

On Long Island or anywhere else in the state of New York, if you are suspected of a white-collar crime and you are under investigation by state and/or federal authorities, if you believe that you are under investigation, or if you’ve been arrested and charged with a white-collar crime, you must retain the services of an experienced Long Island criminal defense attorney.

Sometimes a white-collar crime investigation can take months, but if you are the subject, you don’t have to endure that kind of apprehension alone. Let a Long Island criminal defense attorney help.

The punishment for a white-collar crime conviction can include imprisonment, fines, restitution, community service, probation, and “alternative” sentencing such as electronic monitoring.

Penalties became harsher after the Enron scandal, when Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, defining new white-collar crimes and increasing the penalties for mail fraud and wire fraud.

The consequences of a conviction for a white-collar crime extend beyond the penalties imposed by the criminal court. A criminal conviction for a white-collar crime is typically followed by a civil lawsuit when the victim or victims act to recoup their losses.

A criminal conviction for a white-collar crime can also lead to the seizure of bank accounts and even the forfeiture of the offender’s home.

Those who hold a professional license will probably see it revoked after a conviction for a white-collar crime.

If you are charged with a white-collar crime, it does not necessarily mean that you will be convicted. The government must prove – beyond a reasonable doubt – that you intentionally engaged in criminal behavior.

You may have worked for an employer who used you to take money unwittingly from a client’s account, and you had no hint that the employer was acting illegally.

And sometimes, what looks like fraud is really – when it’s all sorted out – just a colossal misunderstanding.

The National Registry of Exonerations was founded in 2012 in conjunction with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law.

The Registry provides details regarding exonerations in the U.S. – cases where a wrongly convicted person was later cleared of all charges on the basis of new evidence.

In March of this year, the Registry released a study of nearly 2,000 exonerations since 1989.

The Registry found that black defendants who are convicted of violent crimes are far more likely than white defendants to be later exonerated.

The exonerated black inmates also had a substantially longer average wait for exoneration than their white counterparts.

University of Michigan law professor Samuel R. Gross, who is a co-author of the Registry’s report, said, “It’s no surprise that in this area, as in almost any other that has to do with criminal justice in the United States, race is the big factor.”

Blacks comprise nearly half – 47 percent – of the approximately 2,000 people exonerated since 1989. The crimes most frequently exonerated are murders, sexual assaults, and drug crimes.

That’s not particularly newsworthy. What’s important is what the Registry’s data tells us about the factors that drive racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system and how that disproportionality can be reduced in the future.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS?

Black defendants receive forty percent of the murder convictions in the United States, but fifty percent of the persons exonerated for murder are also black.

Only 36 percent of those exonerated for murders are whites. Black inmates who were wrongfully convicted of murder spent, on average, three more years in prison than exonerated whites and Hispanics, according to the Registry.

“The causes we have identified run from inevitable consequences of patterns in crime and punishment to deliberate acts of racism,” according to Professor Gross and the report’s co-authors, Maurice Possley and Klara Stephens.

Racial bias and police misconduct such as hiding evidence both play a role in the racial disproportionality. While only about 15 percent of the murders committed by black people target white victims, 31 percent of the blacks who are eventually exonerated of murder were initially convicted of killing white victims.

The report’s authors determined that police misconduct was a factor in 76 percent of the cases in which black murder defendants were eventually exonerated but in only 63 percent of the cases in which white defendants were wrongly convicted of murder.

Previous research tells us that white Americans are more likely to misidentify black people for one another than to misidentify other white people, and that factor may play a role in the wrongful convictions of black defendants.

The Registry’s researchers found that eyewitness mistakes were made in 79 percent of the sexual assault cases where black defendants were wrongly convicted but in only 51 percent of the cases where white defendants were eventually exonerated.

The number of exonerations for wrongful convictions is and has been rising for three decades.

In a second report issued later in March, the Registry said that a record 166 exonerations were reported in 25 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico in 2016.

Of those, 54 exonerations were for homicides, 24 were for sexual assaults, and 15 were for other violent crimes.

The Registry said that 70 or more of those exonerations involved police misconduct. In 2016, 74 exonerations were for convictions based on guilty pleas, more than any previous year.

The majority of these 74 exonerations – 57 of them – were for drug crime convictions, but six were homicide exonerations, and four of those six were cases that involved false confessions.

“There are probably more exonerations that we don’t know about,” Professor Gross admitted.

WHAT IS A CONVICTION INTEGRITY UNIT?

One positive trend cited by the researchers is the expansion of Conviction Integrity Units (or “CIUs”) across the country.

A Conviction Integrity Unit is a division of a prosecutor’s office that strives to avoid, identify, and set right any false convictions.

In 2016, 29 CIUs had been established across the United States, more than twice as many as in 2013 and almost five times as many as in 2011.

Conviction Integrity Units have helped to secure 225 exonerations since 2003, although more than 80 percent of those exonerations have happened only since 2014.

The nation’s most active Conviction Integrity Unit is in Houston, where 76 people were exonerated from 2010 through 2015.

Texas had more exonerations – 58 – than any other state in 2016. Illinois was second with 16, and New York was third with 14.

The National Registry of Exonerations says that 2016 was a record year for exonerations in several respects.

A record number of exonerations in 2016 involved guilty pleas, police misconduct, and the work of Conviction Integrity Units.

Additionally, a record number of exonerations happened in 2016 for those falsely convicted of crimes that never actually happened at all.

In our own state, the New York State Justice Task Force reviews potential exoneration cases and examines the various causes of wrongful convictions in New York.

The Justice Task Force works to identify the practices and patterns that contribute to wrongful convictions in this state and to craft and implement the reforms that are needed to reduce the number of wrongful convictions.

HOW CAN A CRIMINAL DEFENDANT AVOID A WRONGFUL CONVICTION?

No promises or guarantees can ever be made or offered regarding the outcome of any single criminal case.

Nevertheless, if you are charged with a crime on Long Island, in New York City, or anywhere in the state, the best strategy for avoiding a wrongful conviction is to seek the counsel of an experienced Long Island criminal defense attorney.

After any arrest, always politely exercise your right to remain silent and politely insist on your right to have a lawyer present during any interrogation.

While the best strategy for any criminal defendant in New York is to work alongside a Long Island criminal defense attorney, wrongful convictions are still far too common in New York and everywhere else in the U.S. Police officers make mistakes and sometimes intentionally bend the rules.

Many crimes aren’t properly investigated, evidence is often contaminated or simply lost, and the wrong people too often end up in custody.

The sad reality is that today in the U.S., too many innocent people are behind bars for a crime that they did not commit, and there’s no way to know how many.

High-tech refrigerators, toasters, and washing machines may soon be among the tools that detectives will use to solve crimes, according to London’s Daily Telegraph. They’ll be connected to the “Internet of Things.” According to Wikipedia, the Internet of Things is the internet-based networking of vehicles, buildings, appliances, even light poles, and other physical items laden with electronics, sensors, software, cameras, and connectivity that enables these items to gather and exchange information.

In other words, we are connecting almost everything to the internet so that almost everything can gather data and be remote-controlled. In the immediate future, the Internet of Things could provide important clues for investigators working homicides and other crimes. “All these leave a log and a trace of activity. The crime scene of tomorrow is going to be the Internet of Things,” according to Mark Stokes, speaking for London’s Metropolitan Police. Already, detectives on both sides of the Atlantic are currently being trained to look for gadgets that could provide a ‘digital footprint’ of victims, suspects, and persons of interest.

Doorbells are already commercially available that show you – in real time, on your smartphone – who’s knocking at your door. Wireless cameras in refrigerators and washing machines can record movements and the time of those movements. The new Samsung Family Hub Fridge, for example, even includes a camera that provides a live feed of the refrigerator’s contents, so shoppers can see what they need while they’re at the supermarket.

HOW WILL DETECTIVES OPERATE IN THE FUTURE?

Login times and dates will be able to provide alibis and to verify someone’s presence at a specific place and time. Mark Stokes predicts that detectives in the future will carry a digital forensics kit that will let them analyze microchips and download data immediately rather than having to confiscate items and take them to a police lab. However, law enforcement agencies that gather evidence from the Internet of Things will also likely face considerable legal opposition from electronics manufacturers worried about the privacy concerns of consumers.

That’s already happening in Bentonville, Arkansas, where police investigators are trying to obtain evidence regarding the 2015 murder of Victor Collins. When investigators learned that their main suspect in the Collins murder – a man named James Andrew Bates – owned an Amazon “Echo,” they quickly focused on determining if the device had recorded anything that might advance their investigation. Bentonville authorities obtained a warrant telling Amazon to produce any recordings it has from Bates’ Echo device.

According to court documents, James Andrew Bates is suspected of murdering Victor Collins in November 2015. The two had been drinking with two other friends at Bates’ home. One of the friends left, the other apparently fell asleep, and the next day Collins was found dead in the home’s hot tub, according to court records. The coroner ruled that strangulation was the cause of death. Bates has been charged with murder. As 2017 begins, Amazon is refusing to provide any data to Bentonville authorities or even to confirm if it has any information.

Kimberly Weber, an attorney for James Andrew Bates, argues that there is a “big problem that law enforcement can use the technology that advances our quality of life against us,” and Amazon has issued a statement that reads: “Amazon will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us. Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course.”

However, Amazon’s Echo was not the only device that James Andrew Bates had connected to the Internet of Things. According to court records, his electronic water meter recorded that 140 gallons of water were used the night that Victor Collins died – all between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. – possibly, police believe, to clean and wash away blood and evidence from the patio surrounding the hot tub.

HOW DOES THE AMAZON “ECHO” WORK?

The Amazon Echo is an always-on “digital assistant” that supports Amazon’s voice-recognition program, Alexa. Amazon says the Echo and the smaller Echo Dot exceeded sales expectations in 2016 with nine times as many sales as in 2015. Without providing precise numbers, the company says that “millions of new customers will be introduced to Alexa” as a result of holiday-season sales in 2016.

Lynn Terwoerds is the founder of the Voice Privacy Industry Group and is also an executive director of the Executive Women’s Forum on Information Security and Risk Management. She told USA Today, “The myth we must fight against with Echo is that it’s constantly listening in on you – it’s not. I understand that law enforcement would have an interest in any information that could help in a murder investigation, but it can be argued that this data would be of very limited use as compared to individual privacy rights.”

Marc Rotenberg is the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center – EPIC – a Washington-based non-profit. Rotenberg insists that “there should be clear legal standards established for law enforcement access. And manufacturers should adopt techniques for data minimization and data deletion. Devices that retain data will be the targets not only of law enforcement officials but also criminal hackers.”

ARE YOUR RIGHTS AT RISK?

As technology moves forward, privacy is becoming harder to ensure, and the rights of suspects in criminal cases can be endangered. The City of Chicago, for example, is now placing sensors on light poles to monitor, photograph, and listen to what’s happening on the streets – the entire city is being connected to the Internet of Things. Advancing technology is making surveillances, searches, and investigations increasingly complicated. If you are arrested in New York or on Long Island, let an experienced Long Island criminal defense attorney review your case to determine if your privacy rights have been violated by the police.

Lawmakers and courts are doing what they can to protect privacy rights, but advances in technology move much faster than courts and legislatures are able to react. As the law struggles to keep up with technology, the rights of the individual can sometimes be overlooked. If you are charged with a crime, or if you simply need more information regarding your own legal rights, let an experienced Long Island criminal defense attorney provide the representation or legal advice you need.

You probably already know that Mark Twain spelled out three categories of lies: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Crime statistics often are confusing, misleading, twisted on purpose, and usually incomplete. The numbers that will be coming out in January regarding 2016 crime totals will show a higher murder rate in most big cities. That happens almost every January, but you should probably read the headlines with a healthy dose of skepticism.

For example, in December of 2015, former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly charged that the current commissioner, William Bratton, was undercounting New York City’s gun crime totals by not counting people who were injured by broken glass caused by stray gunfire or those whose attire – but not their physical bodies – are pelted by bullets. Bratton, in response, said that such incidents have been ignored since the department started keeping track of shootings in 1994.

However, Commissioner Bratton added that both of these types of shooting crimes are counted as aggravated assaults in the statistics that were officially reported by the city to the FBI. Right there, federal crime statistics and New York City crime statistics don’t match up. The conflicting statistics make New York City a good example of what crime statistics can tell us – and also what crime statistics can’t tell us.

WHAT CRIME FIGURES ARE THE HEADLINES BASED ON?

Compiling and reporting crime statistics is a slow process. The headlines you see in January will be based on each city’s unofficial crime figures. Not all reported crimes, however, get reported to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, the “official” national source for crime statistics, so UCR figures tend to be lower than “actual” crime figures. Furthermore, the FBI will not publish “official” 2016 crime numbers for more than 18,000 local police agencies until the fall of 2017.

Some police departments report “official” crime figures earlier in the year, but every police agency handles the process differently. Some issue a press release in the first week of January, some issue more detailed reports later in the year, and other police departments only release crime statistics on request. Each law enforcement agency handles information requests differently as well. The result: There are lots of “official” crime numbers, and they do not necessarily add up.

New York City, to no one’s surprise, is far from the only city where crime statistics can be confusing. In Oakland and Chicago in 2015, for example, homicides were up but overall crime was down. That’s not uncommon, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which determined that overall crime declined in the largest U.S. cities in 2015 – except in Charlotte and Los Angeles – although the number of homicides increased in large cities. Homicide figures ran counter to overall crime figures in 2014 and 2013 as well.

WHAT DO CRIME FIGURES MEAN FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON?

What does this mean for the average person looking for information about local crime rates? Generally speaking, cities and communities with high homicide numbers also have high rates of violent crime and property crime, but there are plenty of exceptions and nuances that allow politicians and chambers of commerce to spin positive numbers when they need to. When those same politicians and chambers of commerce want more funding for law enforcement, they can spin the data negatively to justify the need for more funds.

Of course, as every New York and Long Island criminal defense attorney knows, a city as large as New York or a setting as diverse as Long Island is going to have low crime in some areas and higher crime in others. On his blog site, statistics professor Ben Wellington ranked 188 New York City neighborhoods for six different kinds of felony crimes based on the first nine months of 2015. Wellington found that a neighborhood’s ranking for homicides usually was a good indicator of the neighborhood’s ranking for assault and battery but seemed entirely unrelated to property crimes like auto theft.

Realistically, however, if you are concerned about becoming a crime victim, who you know may be a far more important factor than where you live. Police spokespersons in cities with rising homicide rates – including Portland, Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C. – routinely remind the public that many homicide victims are gang members or people with criminal records and criminal associates.

WHAT ARE SOME ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS WITH CRIME DATA?

A further problem with crime statistics is the lack of a genuinely uniform reporting procedure. Often, whether or not a crime is reported or “counted” as a crime is left to the discretion – the subjective judgment call – of the police officer on the scene or that officer’s supervisor. There is no precise, codified definition – used across the board – for terms like “gun crimes” or “crimes of violence.” The FBI publication that tells local law enforcement agencies how to define crimes doesn’t even use the word “shooting,” and most police departments don’t count shooting homicides separately from stabbings, strangulations, and other homicides.

Media coverage is a related issue. Rising crime gets coverage. It brings out politicians seeking votes and community voices seeking action. It sells newspapers, garners ratings, and gets web-surfers to click on news sites. “Crime is up” is a front-page story, but if crime is dropping, it’s a story that’s invariably buried somewhere off the front page. Many police departments have been accused of tweaking their crime statistics, so even the “official” FBI numbers probably need to be questioned.

Unreported crime is another concern. Most people who tell poll and survey takers that they’ve been victims of crime added that they never reported the crime to the police. A theft victim may decide that the time and trouble of reporting the theft simply isn’t worth it. Prostitutes and drug dealers may not want to report some of the crimes committed against them, for obvious reasons. Underreporting of rape and sexual assault continues to be a major concern. Experts also believe that many – if not most – incidents of domestic abuse and domestic violence are never reported.

Another problem with crime statistics is fabricated crime accusations. Of course, anyone accused of a felony or a misdemeanor in the Long Island or New York City area will need the help of an experienced Long Island criminal defense lawyer. However, anyone trying to learn something useful from the study of crime statistics will probably need more help than even a good criminal defense attorney can provide.

Crime in large American cities is staggering.  This is certainly true in New York City. This infographic shows there is a rise in violent crimes such as rape and misdemeanor assault over the past year. However, crimes such as murder, larceny, and burglary show a significant decrease.  Fighting crime in New York City is a huge job, and a job that the authorities take very seriously. If you have been arrested for a crime in New York City, speak with an experienced criminal defense attorney to learn your options and protect your rights.