Samson Enzer

Career

A distinguished former federal prosecutor, Samson “Sam” Enzer is the founder and Co-Chair of CahillNXT, the firm’s globally recognized Digital Assets and Emerging Technology practice, and a member of the firm’s top-ranked Litigation, White Collar Defense, and Government Investigations groups. Since launching Cahill’s Digital Assets and Emerging Technology team, Sam has been recognized as a leading litigator and strategic adviser in the areas of Crypto-Asset Disputes and FinTech by Chambers and Legal 500, and has been named a national Law360 MVP in FinTech and a National Law Journal Trailblazer in FinTech, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain. He has also been called a future star by Benchmark Litigation.

An accomplished trial lawyer and corporate adviser, Sam has successfully guided multiple prominent companies and individuals through “bet the company” civil litigations and high-stakes regulatory enforcement proceedings, criminal matters, internal corporate investigations, and corporate crises, often in cases involving the financial services, cryptocurrency, or FinTech sectors. Leading institutions also regularly turn to Sam for advice on regulatory compliance and corporate governance issues relating to a wide range of emerging technologies and markets, including decentralized finance (DeFi), artificial intelligence (AI), carbon offsets, precious metals, biometric data privacy, and online gaming. According to Chambers, clients have lauded Sam for pioneering creative and practical ways to help them lawfully structure businesses, products, investments, fundraising initiatives, payment rails, and other transactions to comply with U.S. securities, commodities, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and money transmitter laws.

Clients interviewed by Chambers have heralded Sam as “an incredible resource,” “a real expert and a triple threat” who “is excellent” in the areas of “regulatory advice, litigation, [and] investigations,” particularly in the DeFi sector where he is “an emerging leader.” Other clients told Chambers that Sam “gets to the bottom of the issue quickly,” “really knows his stuff, is great to work with, has shown a lot of creative thinking around novel areas of the law that are developing,” and is “very results-oriented and client-focused.”

Sam has secured successful outcomes for preeminent corporations, officers, directors, entrepreneurs, and public officials in some of their most challenging civil and criminal matters, including in connection with inquiries by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), New York Attorney General (NYAG), and other regulators. For example, Sam has helped numerous clients under scrutiny in criminal and regulatory probes to persuade enforcement authorities to decline to bring charges. In disputes that could not be resolved without litigation, Sam has won numerous victories inside and outside of courtrooms in civil and criminal cases, including multiple triumphs in jury and bench trials, court and arbitration hearings, and appeals. Most recently, Sam obtained victories on emergency applications for injunctive relief for Microsoft in federal court litigation to disrupt a cybercrime network, and for a distressed lender in using Delaware Chancery Court litigation to effectuate a corporate takeover of a blockchain company.

Sam has been described as “one of the leading cryptocurrency enforcement practitioners to come out of government service in recent years” by The National Law Journal and as the “SDNY Crypto Ace” by Law360. He is regularly sought out by leading cryptocurrency trading exchanges, asset managers, derivatives trading firms, investment advisers, market makers, broker-dealers, FinTech payment platforms, digital wallet service providers, DeFi protocol developers, blockchain startups, private equity funds, venture capital firms, banks, and businesspeople seeking counsel concerning digital assets and other emerging technologies. Entities and entrepreneurs across the cryptocurrency ecosystem have entrusted their most vexing legal problems to Sam, including a DeFi wallet provider and a global digital asset trading platform facing existential civil litigations and regulatory enforcement matters, a FinTech startup founder accused by DOJ of laundering $4.5 billion in stolen Bitcoin, and directors and officers of a leading cryptocurrency custodian under investigation by the DOJ, SEC and CFTC as a result of the company’s loss of access to millions of dollars in customer assets.

Sam is a frequent speaker, news commentator, and author on cutting-edge issues concerning the regulation of cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), stablecoins, and other digital assets. For example, Sam has appeared on televised CNBC, CBS, Yahoo Finance, and Fox Business programs and the popular podcast Unchained, and has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal, CNN Business, Bloomberg News, and other major news outlets on various cryptocurrency-related topics ranging from FTX’s collapse to spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Sam was also featured in the Netflix true-crime documentary Bitconned, which covers an early cryptocurrency fraud case that he prosecuted during his time in government.

Before joining Cahill, Sam served for eight years in DOJ as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where he rose to become a senior member of the SDNY Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. As a federal prosecutor at SDNY, Sam led numerous high-profile investigations and prosecutions of a broad range of financial and other white collar crimes, including multiple groundbreaking cryptocurrency enforcement matters. For example, Sam spearheaded the first securities fraud prosecution in SDNY history arising from an initial coin offering (ICO), and led the prosecution of McAfee antivirus software founder John D. McAfee on securities fraud, commodities fraud, touting fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering charges arising from deceptive cryptocurrency promotions. Sam also won a hard-fought jury trial in a high-profile insider trading prosecution of a former managing director at a major investment bank.

During his tenure at SDNY, Sam was nominated for the United States Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award in 2018 and received the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation’s Prosecutor of the Year Award in 2014.

Before SDNY, Sam worked as a litigation associate at another international law firm and clerked for United States District Judge Louis L. Stanton. Sam graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was a senior editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

Sam serves on the lawyers’ advisory council for a non-profit organization offering educational opportunities to underprivileged inner city youth, and provides pro bono representation to indigent criminal defendants.