The Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program distributed more than a trillion dollars in pandemic relief funding between 2020 and 2022. Federal prosecutors have been working through the resulting fraud cases ever since, and in 2026 those prosecutions are far from finished. A coordinated federal enforcement sweep in early 2026 charged approximately […]
Category Archives: Federal Criminal Defense
DFW International Airport intercepted 378 firearms at its security checkpoints in 2024 which is the second highest total of any airport in the United States (behind only Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson). Texas is the number one state in the country for airport gun seizures. Of the firearms detected at DFW, the overwhelming majority were loaded. Almost none […]
A few weeks after a shoplifting arrest in Texas, many people receive a certified letter at home from a law firm they have never heard of. The letter demands payment of several hundred dollars (sometimes significantly more than the value of whatever was allegedly taken) and threatens legal action if the amount is not paid […]
Texas is a permitless carry state. Since September 1, 2021, eligible adults can carry a handgun without a license. But constitutional carry does not mean carry anywhere. Texas Penal Code §46.03 establishes a list of locations where firearms are prohibited and carrying into any of them is not a Class C citation. In most cases, […]
Few areas of firearms law have changed as rapidly as the rules governing homemade firearms and NFA-regulated weapons. A Supreme Court decision in March 2025 settled one major dispute about ghost gun regulations. A new federal law in July 2025 eliminated the $200 NFA tax stamp fee that had been in place since 1934. Texas’s […]
Federal fraud prosecutions almost always involve multiple statutes charged together. A scheme that uses email communications, involves a bank, and includes documents sent through the mail can produce wire fraud counts, bank fraud counts, and mail fraud counts with each carrying its own penalty, each requiring the same or similar evidence, and each adding to […]
By Deandra Grant, J.D., M.S. (Pharmaceutical Science), ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist A gun crime that begins as a state case in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, or McLennan County can become a federal case overnight. When it does, everything changes: the courthouse, the prosecutor, the judge, the sentencing rules, and the consequences. Federal gun crime convictions carry […]
By Deandra Grant, J.D., M.S. (Pharmaceutical Science), ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Hemani which is a case that could fundamentally reshape how the federal government prosecutes gun crimes against people who use marijuana. A majority of the justices, conservative and liberal alike, expressed […]
By Deandra Grant, J.D., M.S. (Pharmaceutical Science), ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist If you are facing federal criminal charges right now, or if you have already been charged and are waiting for sentencing, there is a development at the United States Sentencing Commission that could directly affect your case. And unless your defense attorney is tracking it, […]
On December 18, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to “take all necessary steps” to complete the rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The executive order, titled “Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research,” followed a rulemaking process that began under the […]