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Obtaining Testimony and Evidence from Overseas Witnesses

By Daniel R. Alonso
March 27, 2008
Imagine that your client is an executive charged with embezzling from the New York office of an Argentine business by siphoning funds into a private account. Although the primary witnesses are located in Argentina, they are willing to travel to the United States to testify for the prosecution. You, in turn, discover employees who would testify if called that your client was authorized by his company to open and use the account, but they are unwilling to leave Argentina and unwilling voluntarily to produce documents that would corroborate their testimony.

Will you be able to secure evidence that could clear your client when it is located outside the reach of U.S. courts? It's a salient question for today's e-commerce counsel.

The defense of white-collar crime increasingly involves the need to obtain evidence from witnesses located abroad. Without careful planning, exculpatory evidence may remain beyond the reach of a defendant for whom such evidence is the only thing standing between him or her, and a prison sentence.

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