Former DOJ prosecutor joins Capes, Sokol, Goodman & Sarachan

Former federal prosecutor Justin K. Gelfand has joined the Clayton, Mo. firm Capes, Sokol, Goodman & Sarachan.

“As the number of IRS criminal tax fraud investigations continues to increase, particularly in areas of international tax evasion, preparer fraud and identity theft, we are thrilled to add a lawyer with Justin’s credentials to our team of criminal tax and white collar litigators," said Sara Neill, chair of the firm's civil and criminal tax controversy practice.

Gelfand joined the U.S. Department of Justice in 2009 through the Attorney General’s Honors Program and was assigned to the Tax Division’s Southern Criminal Enforcement Section. Based in Washington, D.C., Gelfand prosecuted a wide range of federal criminal cases throughout the country, including criminal tax, financial fraud, identity theft, offshore banking, immigration fraud, passport fraud, money laundering, international tax evasion and domestic terrorism matters.

As a prosecutor, Gelfand first-chaired more than 10 federal fraud jury trials and numerous federal bench trials—winning all of them. Gelfand spearheaded more than 50 significant financial fraud grand jury investigations and represented the United States before federal courts of appeal with a 100 percent success rate.

Gelfand was a faculty member at the National Advocacy Center, the U.S. Department of Justice’s acclaimed legal academy in South Carolina, where he taught hundreds of federal prosecutors about the intricacies of criminal tax and identity theft cases. He helped develop the way stolen identity tax refund fraud cases are now investigated and prosecuted and trained more than 1,000 federal agents in 15 states on cutting-edge investigative techniques utilized by law enforcement today. For this work, Gelfand received the 2013 Attorney General’s Award for Fraud Prevention, which is one of the Justice Department’s highest honors in the field of white collar and public corruption litigation.

Gelfand graduated in the top 5 percent of his class at Washington University School of Law and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. During law school, Gelfand was senior editor of the Washington University Law Review, a two-time National Quarterfinalist on the law school’s National Moot Court Team, and president of the Criminal Justice Society.