Managing SEC-Related Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions

Jeff Kern is a partner in the Governmental Practice and serves as a Managing Partner of Sheppard Mullin’s New York office. Jeff also heads the firm’s Securities Enforcement & Litigation Team and is a charter member of the Blockchain & Digital Assets Team.
Jeff's practice encompasses white collar defense, securities and insurance regulation, compliance, and litigation as well as internal investigations. He represents broker-dealers and associated individuals who are the focus of SEC, FINRA and other regulatory investigations and provides guidance in the FINRA membership application and business expansion process. He has particular expertise with SRO litigation, corporate investigations and investigative testimony. He also has experience assisting broker-dealers obtain approval to conduct a digital assets business.
In addition, Jeff is a seasoned litigator who has conducted over 70 trials and SRO disciplinary hearings. He has also conducted numerous criminal, regulatory and private sector investigations, including those involving bank, securities and immigration fraud, tax evasion, the False Claims Act, asset forfeiture, wage and hour violations, and Food & Drug Administration compliance. His practice also encompasses government and regulatory subpoena response. He speaks frequently on litigation and investigative strategy and has appeared numerous times in print and on network television as a legal commentator.
Before joining Sheppard Mullin, Jeff served as Senior Regional Counsel in FINRA's Department of Enforcement and Senior Trial Counsel in the New York Stock Exchange Enforcement Division. In both positions, he investigated and prosecuted violations of NYSE, NASD, FINRA and SEC rules and federal securities laws. His work at the NYSE and FINRA included investigations, trials and appeals involving Rule 10b-5 fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, mutual fund switching, supervision, research, advertising, private placements, anti-money laundering, financial reporting, sales practice violations, outside business, conversion, and trading improprieties committed on the Exchange Floor.
At FINRA, Jeff served as the District 10 liaison to the greater New York law enforcement community and oversaw the training program for Member Regulation staff in New York and Long Island. He was also a frequent presenter at FINRA conferences and training exercises. In November 2010, Jeff received the FINRA Outstanding Achievement Award for his work on a complex investigation involving a prominent financial commentator and US Senate candidate.
Prior to FINRA, Jeff spent 11 years in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, prosecuting and investigating homicides and other high profile cases and serving as Director of Training and Chief of the Investigations Bureau. He has served as Managing Director and Regional Counsel for Decision Strategies, an international investigative services provider, and as Senior Trial Consultant for DOAR Communications, a litigation consulting firm.
From 1993 to 2013, Jeff served as an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, teaching a curriculum he developed on the use of strategic planning and persuasive presentation in the law. He is also a volunteer instructor in Cardozo Law's Intensive Trial Advocacy Program and a guest lecturer at Columbia, Fordham, Brooklyn and St. John's Law Schools.
Jeff oversees the firm's New York Summer Associate Program and is a member of the office’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Terence Healy represents clients in their most sensitive matters before the United States government. He is Chair of the Securities Enforcement Practice and Co-Chair of the Private Funds Practice at the firm. Terence regularly represents public companies, financial institutions, hedge funds, private fund advisers, and individual officers and directors in matters against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the CME Group (CME), and other regulators. His practice is focused on four areas: Securities Enforcement, Internal Investigations and Corporate Governance, Complex Litigation, and Private Funds.
Terence routinely represents financial institutions and individual officers and directors in securities enforcement proceedings before domestic and foreign regulators. He has successfully defended companies and individuals in formal investigations and litigated proceedings, often securing favorable resolutions with regulators—even after the issuance of a formal Wells notice or its equivalent—without any charges being brought. He has a detailed understanding of the challenges facing public companies and financial firms in complying with the changing regulatory environment after Dodd-Frank and has extensive experience in the areas of financial reporting and in issues affecting investment advisers and the private funds industry.
Terence has led internal investigations on behalf of public companies, audit committees, special committees, private fund managers, family offices, and financial institutions. He has extensive experience in managing large investigative teams, securing and gathering relevant information, and leading clients through the challenges that flow from the discovery of institutional misconduct. He believes effective internal investigations should have a clearly defined scope with agreed to procedures, anticipated timeline, and budget. Terence counsels clients on issues such as fiduciary duties in conducting investigations, public disclosure and financial reporting obligations, and communicating with various outside interested parties.
For more than two decades, Terence has represented clients in complex disputes before trial and appellate courts throughout the country. He is a seasoned trial lawyer and has been lead counsel in numerous complex matters tried to verdict, including multidistrict proceedings. Some of his notable results include securing dismissal of claims against numerous officers and directors in securities class actions; obtaining summary dismissal of claims against a private fund manager and its principal following a two month trial of an SEC enforcement proceeding; securing a defense verdict for the lead defendant in a four month federal trial concerning a mass tort; securing a favorable verdict on all claims following a three month federal trial alleging financial fraud at a public company; and briefing and arguing a certified appeal to a state supreme court, leading to the dismissal of a $500 million claim against his client and the issuance of a precedential decision from a federal court of appeals which was later cited by the Supreme Court of United States. In each of these matters, Terence was the first-chair lead trial attorney.
Terence is the co-head of the Private Funds Practice at the firm and has extensive experience counseling investment advisers and private fund managers in regulatory and enforcement matters affecting their firms. Our Private Funds Practice brings together subject matter experts in the areas of fund formation, compliance, tax, structuring, and securities. Our attorneys have more than 30 years of experience working with the asset management industry and help fund managers work through both the regulatory and business issues they face. The strength of our practice lies in our judgment and in a knowledge of the private funds industry gained over decades of experience.

Stacy Bogert is an Associate Director with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement in its Home Office. Stacy previously served as a Senior Counsel and Assistant Director in Enforcement, where she has investigated and litigated a broad variety of complex matters, including cases involving broker dealers, investment advisers, accounting fraud, offering fraud, insider trading, registration violations, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Prior to joining the SEC, Stacy was an associate at Covington & Burling, and clerked for the Honorable Benson E. Legg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Russell Capone is a former federal prosecutor with significant experience handling complex criminal cases, particularly those involving corruption, financial fraud and other white collar crimes. Russell served for more than 10 years at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, most recently as chief counsel to the US Attorney. In that role, Russell helped oversee SDNY’s most significant and sensitive investigations and prosecutions involving, among other crimes, white collar and cybercrime, securities fraud, public corruption, terrorism, gang violence, organized crime, sex trafficking and international narcotics trafficking. He also helped supervise matters arising in SDNY’s Civil Division, including those involving civil rights violations, as well as violations of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute.

Lorin L. Reisner is a partner in the litigation department and Co-Chair of the firm’s White Collar and Regulatory Defense Practice. He has more than twenty years of experience representing companies, boards of directors and senior executives in a broad range of litigation and related matters. He previously served as a federal prosecutor and senior Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement official. Lorin’s practice emphasizes white collar matters, government investigations and complex business litigation.
From January 2012 through June 2014, Lorin served as Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where he supervised the investigation and prosecution of federal crimes by a team of more than 160 Assistant U.S. Attorneys. The areas under his supervision included securities and commodities fraud, complex fraud and cybercrime, public corruption, terrorism and violent crime.
From 2009 until his appointment as Chief of the Criminal Division, Lorin served as the Deputy Director of the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In that position, he helped set enforcement priorities, supervised the work of the Division's more than 900 investigative professionals nationwide, made enforcement recommendations to the Commission and oversaw the trial and related litigation activity of the Enforcement Division. While at the SEC, Lorin helped oversee and implement the most significant reorganization of the Enforcement Division in more than thirty years and helped lead the Commission's most significant enforcement matters.
Lorin is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading lawyers in connection with government investigations. His earlier government service also included serving as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1990-1994, where he investigated and prosecuted financial crimes, public corruption and racketeering crimes. As an AUSA, Lorin received the Department of Justice's Director's Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney.