Sharon L. McCarthy, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, has extensive experience representing individuals and corporations in white-collar criminal matters as well as civil and criminal tax controversies.
Her cases have included government investigations of: tax fraud; mail and wire fraud, including theft of honest services; accounting fraud; failure to file tax returns; criminal antitrust violations; securities fraud, including unregistered offerings of cryptocurrency, insider trading, and market manipulation; bank fraud; construction fraud relating to Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) certification; and attorney misconduct. Ms. McCarthy conducts sensitive internal investigations for corporate and institutional clients either facing potential criminal charges or whose officers or employees have engaged in misconduct. She has represented individuals who have been implicated, but not charged, in connection with major public corruption cases.
Ms. McCarthy assists clients in voluntarily disclosing off-shore assets and has successfully represented numerous clients in connection with both IRS and NYS tax audits involving sensitive matters, including undisclosed income and off-shore assets.
Ms. McCarthy serves as the Pro Bono Coordinator for the firm.
She is recognized in Chambers USA as a leading New York lawyer in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations. She also has been recognized by “New York Super Lawyers” in the field of white-collar criminal defense since 2009. She has been included in the list of Top 50 Women and the Top 100 Lawyers in New York Metro Super Lawyers. Since 2011, Ms. McCarthy has been listed in Best Lawyers in America, and she is AV Rated in Martindale-Hubbell.
A seasoned trial lawyer, in 2013, Ms. McCarthy 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, Ms. McCarthy 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.
Ms. McCarthy also has an extensive background in public service. From 1994 to 2006, Ms. McCarthy 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, Ms. McCarthy served as Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and served in the Public Corruption Unit. Ms. McCarthy 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.
Additionally, Ms. McCarthy was appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in November 2020 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.
Ms. McCarthy is actively involved in various professional associations. She is the Chair of the Federal Criminal Procedure Committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and a member of its Downstate New York Committee and its Committee on Advocacy in the 21st Century. She is a member of 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.
Prior to her service in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. McCarthy 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.
Ms. McCarthy is a 1989 graduate of Fordham Law School, where she served as an Articles Editor on the Fordham Law Review. She received a B.A. in 1985 from Colgate University.
