There is a moment that changes everything. A summons arrives in which you are no longer a “party” or a “subject of audit.” You are a suspect. A word that until yesterday belonged to another world—the world of crime dramas, tabloids, people who “did something wrong”—suddenly applies to you.
This is no longer a dispute over the interpretation of regulations. This is a matter in which the stakes are your freedom and everything you’ve built.
- Further reading: The Boomerang: How Instruments of Repression Turn on Their Makers
The Anatomy of Fear
Psychology knows a phenomenon called tunneling—a narrowing of the visual field under stress. When you sense threat, the brain automatically reduces the scope of attention. You see only what is directly in front of you. You lose perspective.
Criminal proceedings are designed—consciously or not—to exploit this mechanism.
The summons arrives suddenly. Deadlines are short. The language is foreign and ominous. You don’t know what you may say, what you must say, what you shouldn’t say. You don’t know whether your explanations will help or harm. You don’t know who else is being questioned and what they’re saying.
In this state, people make mistakes that are later difficult to repair. They say too much, because silence feels like an admission of guilt. They try to explain context that the prosecutor doesn’t want to hear. They sign protocols without reading them carefully. They agree to things they didn’t have to agree to.
The first contact with law enforcement is the moment of maximum asymmetry. They know what they’re looking for. You don’t know what they know.
The Interrogation: Theater with Consequences
An interrogation looks like a conversation, but it is not a conversation. It is a procedure in which every word is recorded and may be used—now or years hence—in ways you cannot foresee.
The psychology of interrogation is well studied. We know that people under pressure overestimate the benefits of talking and underestimate the risks. We know that the need to be perceived as helpful and sincere is deeply rooted—and easily exploited. We know that memory is reconstructive: under the influence of suggestive questions, people “remember” things that never happened.
Interrogators are trained in this. They know how to build rapport, create a false sense of safety, intersperse neutral questions with critical ones. They know how to use silence in ways that compel speech. They know how to suggest they know more than they do.
You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to counsel. These rights exist not because the system is unjust—but because without them it would be. Exercising them is not a sign of guilt. It is a sign of reason.
The Anchoring Effect
Cognitive psychology describes a phenomenon called anchoring: the first piece of information we receive disproportionately influences subsequent judgments. A prosecutor who sees the case as fraud will interpret every subsequent fact through that lens. A judge who has received an indictment already has a certain narrative in mind.
This is why the beginning of proceedings matters so much. How you are presented in the initial documents, what explanations you give at the first interrogation, what picture emerges from the first witness statements—all of this creates an anchor from which it is difficult to break free later.
Defense at the investigative stage is not waiting for trial. It is shaping the narrative before the narrative is set without your participation.
The Myth of Passive Defense
There is a belief that in a criminal case it’s best to sit quietly and wait. That counsel enters at the trial stage. That the investigation is the prosecutor’s time, not the defense’s.
This is a mistake that can cost years.
The investigative phase is when evidentiary material takes shape. When the prosecution decides what charges to bring and how to frame them. When witnesses give testimony they won’t remember later—but which will be read aloud at trial.
Active defense at this stage means: participation in interrogations, access to the file, evidentiary initiative, filing motions. It means being present where the case is being shaped—not waiting for it to arrive fully formed.
Many clients come to us only after receiving an indictment. We can help them—but the possibilities are narrower then. The anchor has already been dropped.
The Test of Courage
A criminal tax case is a test of character. But courage in this context does not mean bravado.
Courage is the capacity to function despite fear. To make decisions when everything inside you is screaming to flee, to hide, to agree to anything just to make it stop.
Sometimes courage means silence when instinct demands explanation. Sometimes it means fighting when everything seems lost. Sometimes it means negotiating when emotion demands war to the end. Sometimes it means admitting and seeking the best possible resolution.
A good defense counsel is not there to make these decisions for you. They are there so you can make them consciously—understanding the consequences, knowing the options, seeing the whole field, not just the tunnel in front of you.
Stigma
There is something else lawyers rarely discuss: stigma.
The mere filing of charges changes how others look at you. It changes how you look at yourself. Even if the case ends in dismissal, even if you are acquitted—the trace remains. In the files, on the internet, in people’s memories, in your own memory.
This is a cost that cannot be fully compensated. It can only be minimized—through efficient conduct of the defense, through controlling the narrative, through pursuing the fastest possible resolution.
What We Do
We enter from day one. We are present at interrogations, searches, inspections. We analyze evidentiary material before it becomes an indictment. We shape the line of defense while there is still time to shape it.
At the trial stage, we defend before courts of both instances. We file appeals and cassations. We cross-examine witnesses. We challenge evidence. We fight for acquittal—and when that is impossible, for the lowest possible sentence, conditional discontinuance, voluntary submission to liability.
We also offer something that may seem unusual: a mock interrogation. A simulation of what awaits you—so you know what it looks like before you find yourself in a room with a prosecutor.
Because in criminal tax cases, preparation is not an advantage. It is the condition of survival.
