White-collar allegations rarely start with handcuffs. They start with an auditor's memo, a former partner's accusation, a detective's voicemail asking for "your side of the story" — and what happens in that quiet early window usually decides the case. Mack Law defends business owners, professionals, and employees across Central Florida against grand theft, fraud, and embezzlement charges, with a trial practice that also handles the civil disputes these cases so often travel with.
How Florida charges financial crimes
Most Florida white-collar prosecutions are built on two statutes. Grand theft, § 812.014, grades by amount — and the amounts are lower than most people assume, current as of July 2026:
| Value taken | Charge | Exposure |
|---|---|---|
| $750 – $20,000 | Grand theft, third degree (F3) | Up to 5 years |
| $20,000 – $100,000 | Grand theft, second degree (F2) | Up to 15 years |
| $100,000 or more | Grand theft, first degree (F1) | Up to 30 years |
Seven hundred fifty dollars is a felony. And in employee and fiduciary cases the State aggregates: a bookkeeper accused of taking $600 a month for two years is not facing twenty-four petty thefts — she is facing a single second-degree felony for $14,400... and if the alleged scheme crosses $20,000, the exposure jumps to fifteen years.
Scheme to defraud, § 817.034 (the Florida Communications Fraud Act), is the State's charge of choice when the allegation is a course of conduct — inflated invoices, misrepresented investments, fraudulent applications. It grades by the same dollar tiers and lets prosecutors tell a story rather than prove a single transaction, which is exactly why it must be answered with the documents, not the narrative.
The defenses live in the ledger
Authorization and intent. Theft requires proof you knowingly took property you had no right to take. In closely held businesses that element is genuinely contested terrain: draws the partners later disavow, expense practices everyone used until the falling-out, compensation that was promised orally and taken in kind. What a jilted partner calls embezzlement, the books often call course of dealing — and Florida juries understand the difference when the defense has done the forensic work.
The civil-dispute reframe. A striking share of white-collar files are business divorces wearing a criminal costume: one side went to the sheriff's economic crimes unit because it's cheaper than filing suit. Prosecutors know they are not collection agencies, and a defense that documents the underlying commercial dispute — and shows counsel ready to litigate it in the right courtroom — frequently persuades the State to decline or reduce. This firm litigates those commercial cases too, which means the criminal defense and the civil strategy are built by the same hand instead of colliding.
The pre-charge window. If a detective is calling, charges have usually not been filed — which means there is still a decision to influence. Retained counsel can engage the investigator and the filing prosecutor, put context and exculpatory records in front of them, and negotiate before the information is signed. Cases die quietly in this window; they almost never die quietly after it.
Restitution, used correctly. Paying money back does not erase a theft charge — but the need for restitution is a statutory ground for a downward departure at sentencing, and a credible restitution posture changes charging conversations. Timing and framing matter enormously: paid too early and unexplained, it reads as consciousness of guilt; structured properly, it becomes the centerpiece of a resolution that protects both liberty and license.
The professional stakes
For licensed professionals — real estate, healthcare, finance, law — the conviction is often the smaller half of the damage. Theft and fraud are crimes of dishonesty: they trigger licensing-board discipline, disqualify professionals from bonding, and follow every application forever. Defense strategy has to be built around those collateral consequences from day one, which sometimes means trying a case others would plead, and sometimes means engineering a resolution — pretrial diversion, a plea to a non-dishonesty offense, adjudication withheld — whose whole point is what it keeps off the record.
Common questions
It can be charged — whether it should be is the fight. Where the money moved under a claim of right, pursuant to draws or compensation practices the business tolerated, the criminal intent element is genuinely disputed, and these cases are regularly declined or reduced once the commercial reality is documented. Bring the operating agreement, the distributions history, and the correspondence: the defense is in the paper.
Not automatically — the State, not the alleged victim, controls the charge, and repayment alone is no defense. But restitution is far from irrelevant: it shapes charging decisions, anchors diversion negotiations, and is a recognized ground for sentencing below the scoresheet floor. The key is deploying it through counsel, on negotiated terms, rather than as an unexplained payment that reads as an admission.
Not alone. In financial cases the interview is the investigation — the detective already has the accuser's documents and is looking to lock your account into a recorded statement before you've seen any of them. The answer is counsel first: we can engage the detective, learn the shape of the allegation, and decide strategically what gets said, by whom, and in what form. Context delivered by a lawyer helps; context delivered in an interrogation room becomes Exhibit A.
Aggregation. Amounts taken as part of one scheme or course of conduct are added together and charged as a single theft at the total — which is how a payroll clerk's alleged $300 adjustments become a $30,000 second-degree felony. Aggregation cuts both ways, though: it forces the State to prove the scheme, transaction by transaction, and schemes assembled by an angry employer's spreadsheet often fall apart under a forensic accounting the defense commissions.
It's the right question to ask on day one, because crimes of dishonesty carry mandatory reporting and discipline consequences most boards enforce more harshly than judges do. The defense goal is engineered accordingly: diversion programs, pleas restructured to offenses outside the dishonesty category, and adjudication withheld where eligible can each preserve a license that a routine plea would forfeit. Tell us what you're licensed in at the first call — it changes the strategy.
Yes — the cases can run in parallel, and everything you say in one can surface in the other, which is why coordination matters more than anything. Discovery responses, deposition testimony, even settlement communications have to be sequenced with the Fifth Amendment and the criminal timeline in mind. Having one firm see both boards — this firm's civil litigation practice exists for exactly these collisions — prevents the classic disaster of winning the lawsuit with testimony that convicts you.
If the investigation has started, the defense should have too.
Related
Criminal Defense at Mack Law
A felony-only practice: how we work, what we defend, and why the first 72 hours matter.
The Felony Scoresheet
Theft and fraud levels, the 44-point line, and why restitution is a sentencing lever.
Business Litigation
Partnership disputes, contract fights, and the civil cases criminal allegations travel with.
The Felony Process
Arrest to resolution in Orange County — the timeline, the hearings, and the decision points.
General information about Florida law — not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. Theft grading from § 812.014, Florida Statutes; communications fraud from § 817.034; departure grounds from § 921.0026 (verified July 2026). Every case depends on its facts; prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.