Peter A. Crusco
The digital age has changed the way collective entities create, store and access information which, of course, impacts the time-honored vehicle used in obtaining that information in a criminal investigation by the government, that is, the grand jury subpoena duces tecum (SDT). Most fraud prosecutions today are in some degree founded on or supported by the government obtaining and analyzing treasure troves of electronically stored financial documents (“ESI”) and communications between the offenders, their accomplices and victims.
An intricate set of legal rules has existed for decades concerning the government’s obtaining, authenticating and using testimony concerning those records through the vehicle of the SDT. Today, of course, most records are stored electronically, some on vast cloud networks. Case law indicates that those same methodologies control when the government today seeks digital records. This article will address frequent legal issues involved in a corporation’s response to a grand jury subpoena duces tecum for its ESI.
