Sharon L. McCarthy

Practice Areas

White Collar Criminal Defense; Tax Fraud; Tax Controversy

Career

Sharon L. McCarthy, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, has extensive experience representing individuals and corporations in white-collar criminal matters, civil and criminal tax controversies, and complex commercial litigation.

Her matters have covered a wide range of issues involving allegations of tax fraud; mail and wire fraud, including theft of honest services; accounting fraud; failure to file tax returns; criminal antitrust violations; FCPA violations; securities fraud, including unregistered offerings of cryptocurrency, insider trading, and alleged market manipulation; bank fraud; public corruption; construction fraud relating to Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) certification; asset forfeiture; restitution; and attorney misconduct, among others.

Sharon conducts sensitive internal investigations for corporate and institutional clients either facing potential criminal charges or whose officers or employees have engaged in misconduct.

She also assists clients in voluntarily disclosing off-shore and other assets and has successfully represented numerous clients in connection with both IRS and NYS tax audits involving sensitive matters.

A seasoned trial lawyer, in 2013, Sharon successfully represented Denis Field, the former CEO of BDO Seidman, in a major tax shelter trial in the Southern District of New York. After he had initially been convicted on all counts, Sharon obtained Mr. Field’s acquittal on all counts in a re-trial, in a case described by the government as the largest criminal tax fraud in history.

Sharon also has an extensive background in public service. From 1994 to 2006, Sharon served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she served as lead counsel and supervisor of dozens of federal criminal jury trials and argued numerous appeals before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. While in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Sharon served as Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and served in the Public Corruption Unit. Sharon twice was the recipient of the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney. In 2011, she was appointed by the New York City Police Commissioner to the Crime Reporting Review Committee, whose report was issued in April 2013. From May 2008 to March 2009, she served as Special Counsel to the New York State Attorney General in an investigation into whether there had been political interference with the New York State Police.

In November 2020, Sharon was appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York as the first Independent Hearing Officer for the District Council of New York City and Vicinity of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. She has been appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to the panel of attorneys assigned to advise and assist the Grievance Committee of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Sharon is actively involved in various professional associations. She is Vice Chair of the Downstate New York Committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of its National Trial Competition Committee. She is a member of the Board of the New York Council of Defense Lawyers. She served as President, and the first woman to serve in that capacity, of the Fordham Law Alumni Association and continues to serve as a member of its Board. For over ten years, until September 2019, she was a member of the First Department’s Committee on Character and Fitness. From 2017 to 2018, she served as Vice President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and from 2012 to 2015, she was Chair of the City Bar’s Criminal Law Committee.

Sharon is an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Law School, where she teaches Trial Advocacy.

Prior to her service in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Sharon was an Associate at Lankler Siffert & Wohl and served as a Law Clerk to Judge John F. Keenan, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.