Neil S. Cartusciello practices law in New York and New Jersey.  He handles complex business litigation, corporate investigations and compliance, regulatory enforcement defense (especially involving securities and environmental regulations) and white collar criminal defense.

Before private practice, Mr. Cartusciello had a successful 12-year career as a federal prosecutor, principally with respect to business crimes.  From October 1982 to May 1991, he was an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he handled major securities and tax fraud cases.  He prosecuted corporate raider Victor Posner for tax fraud, takeover specialist Martin Siegel for insider trading, and executives of Princeton/Newport Partners in the first federal racketeering prosecution of securities industry professionals, among others.  

In his last two years at the United States Attorney’s Office, Neil served as deputy chief and then first deputy chief of the Criminal Division.  Thereafter, he became chief of the Environmental Crimes section of the United States Department of Justice, where he supervised 31 prosecutors who handled environmental criminal cases nationwide.  Neil left government service in August 1994 and joined the New Jersey firm of Shanley & Fisher as a partner.  In November 1999, when that firm merged with Drinker Biddle & Reath, he became a partner with Drinker Biddle.  In July 2002, he began his own practice with offices in New York and New Jersey. 

In his private practice, Neil has represented a range of clients including: securities firms in securities and antitrust investigations; publicly-held steel, chemical, pharmaceutical, and environmental services companies in federal and state environmental criminal investigations, internal investigations and voluntary self-disclosures; pharmaceutical companies and a  health care network in health care fraud investigations; as well as business entities, executives and legal and accounting professionals in a  range of criminal and regulatory investigations, class actions and other private civil litigation.  He has also served as a court-appointed independent monitor of one of the world’s largest banking and securities firms, and as independent investigator for environmental, health and safety matters for one of the world’s largest municipal agencies. Neil  has conducted internal investigations of questioned behavior by corporate executives, employees, and outside vendors, for  domestic corporate clients and foreign corporate clients with domestic subsidiaries.  In addition, he was retained by a family to assist in developing proof about a double murder of two family members, leading to the successful federal murder prosecution of the perpetrator. 

Mr. Cartusciello received his B.A. from Yale University in 1971 and his J.D. magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he was editor-in-chief of the Buffalo Law Review.  He was also the author of Chapter 1 of the Grand Jury Practice Manual published in 1994 by the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice.  In 1994 and 1995, he co-taught a course in white collar crime at American University School of Law as an adjunct faculty member.  In addition, he has lectured and presented at a range of professional and academic conferences and seminars.  He served on the Mendham Borough Board of Education for nine years, and was president of the board for six years.

Mr. Cartusciello lives with his wife Cynthia and four children in New York, New York.