The New York Times recently reported that the United States Department of Justice has officially adopted guidelines which make Deferred Prosecution Agreements an official alternative to a "guilty" or "not guilty" plea in select white collar crime cases. Deferred Prosecution Agreements allow companies that are under investigation to enter into agreements where the Justice Department delays or cancels prosecution in return for an agreement by the companies to change any wrong behavior. A Justice Department spokeswoman said that "deferred prosecution agreements require that corporations pay penalties and restitution, correct criminal conduct and 'achieve these results without causing the loss of jobs, the loss of pensions and other significant negative consequences to innocent parties who played no role in the criminal conduct, were unaware of it or were unable to prevent it.'"

In the past several years, the highly trained attorneys and staff at Simmons Law Firm have successfully negotiated Deferred Prosecution agreements in a number of cases - including the CEO of a major health care corporation who was charged with Wire Fraud and Mail Fraud and a large regional company accused of unlawfully hiring undocumented immigrants. We realize that a criminal trial can be extremely costly and time-consuming and are therefore dedicated to seeking alternative resolution of white collar criminal cases. Attorney John Simmons was the US Attorney for the District of South Carolina, in charge of all federal criminal prosecutions in the State of South Carolina, for several years and gained invaluable experience prosecuting companies and individuals charged with white collar crimes. John Simmons now brings this same skill set to defending these individuals and companies and stands ready to vigorously defend against all white collar crimes.

Read the NY Times Article Here