United States v. Schneider, No. 03-1764 (January 14, 2005)
Background
Jeffrey Schneider was an accountant at a company that funded residential loans, and was implicated in a fraudulent scheme on the part of some of the company’s principals to skim funds from escrow accounts. There were several years of contententious pretrial proceedings, some of the highlights of which included: (1) a failed proffer session at which defense counsel balked at some of the terms of the agreement, which led the prosecutor to tell Schneider that his attorney was “making a very big mistake;” and, (2) a decision by different prosecutors more than a year later not to pursue criminal charges, even though an indictment had been filed.
Schneider went to trial and was acquitted. He then moved in the district court for attorney’s fees under the Hyde Amendment, which has been codified as a statutory note to 18 U.S.C. § …