Randy K. Jones

San Diego

Randy K. Jones brought more than 25 years of experience as a federal prosecutor to his role as trial lawyer, civil litigator and white-collar criminal defense attorney at Mintz in 2015. His background covers a broad spectrum of white-collar crimes, including health care fraud, government contract fraud, securities fraud and financial institution fraud.

A significant matter he worked on was United States v. Bychak, et al., where he represented a co-defendant in a ten-count indictment involving federal wire fraud and electronic mail fraud conspiracy. This case was particularly notable as it was the first prosecution under the CAN-SPAM Act's specific section, raising complex legal questions about the definition of "registrant" for IP addresses, particularly legacy IP addresses that predate modern registration requirements.

Jones' team achieved a victory in this case, securing a plea deal for their client to a one-count, no-jail misdemeanor charge, significantly reducing the potential consequences of the original ten-count felony indictment.

He said this case's significance lies in its potential to clarify legal interpretations regarding IP address registrants and contribute to the evolving discourse on the scope of the wire fraud statute, particularly concerning the concept of property and the criminalization of unethical or immoral behavior without demonstrating harm to the alleged victim's property.

Jones added that since joining the defense side of the table, he has realized that managing the internal dynamics of a joint defense group can be one of the most challenging and stressful aspects of a white-collar defense attorney's life.

"Joint defense groups offer many beneficial elements -- splitting costs for discovery or experts, division of labor for pre-trial tasks and general alignment of legal strategy to present a more robust, coherent, and unified message to a jury," he said. "However, when interests are not fully aligned, the dynamics of a joint defense group can break down at critical junctures or lead to inefficient results."

Looking to the future, Jones said he foresees the courts continuing to chip away at the scope of the mail and wire fraud statutes.

Jones wrote that "the past few years have seen the continued development of the case law surrounding intangible property rights, with the U.S. Supreme Court notably curbing intangible property rights in cases like Kelly v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 1565, 1573 (2020) (bridge lane realignment implicated state's regulatory power, not property rights, and deprivation of employee labor was "incidental byproduct") and Ciminelli v. United States, 143 S. Ct. 1121 (2023) (rejecting the "right to control" theory -- which treated the deprivation of complete and accurate information bearing on an economic decision as a species of property fraud--as a valid basis for wire fraud liability)."

"Despite these wins for the federal criminal defense bar, prosecutors will still aggressively target behaviors like undisclosed self-dealing, government corruption, unethical business practices, and rule-breaking in private organizations," he continued. "These often involve theories of inaccurate or misleading information which deprive victims of money or property. Therefore, courts will need to continue to build the intangible rights case law so that the public can gain greater certainty as to what is or is not illegal under the mail and wire fraud statutes."