Timothy Howard

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About

Having spent the past 12 years as an Assistant US Attorney for the SDNY, most recently as Co-Chief of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, my practice at Freshfields focuses on white collar and government regulatory investigations, with special attention to cybersecurity, data breaches, and cryptocurrency fraud. My investigative experience includes managing significant white-collar cases across a wide range of disciplines, including cryptocurrency fraud, tax fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations, health care fraud, consumer fraud, investment fraud, and government contracting fraud.



At SDNY, I tried and supervised 17 trials to verdict and served as SDNY’s Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator. My experience in cyber, national security, darknet, cryptocurrency and complex white-collar cases includes such matters as:



· Charges exposing a wide range of Iran state-sponsored cyber attacks, including Iranian interference in the 2020 US Presidential Election, a massive global hacking campaign engaged by the Mabna Institute to hack into universities and companies around the world, and destructive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the U.S. financial sector

· Unmasking and conviction of the founder and operator of the Silk Road darknet website for the distribution of over $200 million worth of narcotics, computer hacking tools, fake identity documents and money laundering services using the Tor network and Bitcoin (received 2015 Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service as trial counsel)

· Prosecution of 18 former National Basketball Association players for defrauding the league’s health plan of millions of dollars

· Prosecution of leaders of OneCoin in connection with a billion-dollar international cryptocurrency fraud scheme

· First federal prosecution of individuals for engaging in a million-dollar non-fungible token (NFT) digital asset “rug pull” scheme

· Corporate tax fraud cases against Swiss Life, Rahn & Bodmer Co. and Bank Hapoalim, and against individuals associated with the Panamanian law firm Mossack and Fonseca (known as the “Panama Papers”)

· Multiple corporate FCPA resolutions



I earned a B.S. in Computer Science at Georgetown University (magna cum laude) and a B.A. in Government and received my J.D. from Harvard Law School (cum laude). Afterwards, I clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Honorable Joseph F. Bianco on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.