Joel M. Sweet

Biography

Joel M. Sweet is a litigator with decades of experience combatting fraud against consumers and federal programs. After 21 years serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Mr. Sweet returned to Berger Montague to continue pursuing justice for consumers, investors, and borrowers, and to protect taxpayer dollars from fraud on government programs through the representation of whistleblowers.

As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Sweet developed innovative strategies to identify financial institutions and illegal third-party payment processors complicit in consumer fraud and abuse. After successful criminal and civil prosecutions against several banks and third-party payment processors, the Attorney General selected Mr. Sweet to design and lead an aggressive national consumer protection initiative. Working from the Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch, Mr. Sweet led a team of prosecutors and law enforcement agents in an effort described in a New York Times editorial as an “important strategy designed to protect depositors from unauthorized withdrawals from their banks accounts.”

Mr. Sweet’s team’s efforts led to a large number of civil settlements, criminal prosecutions, and the recovery of tens of millions of dollars for fraud victims. The initiative led to hundreds of domestic and foreign fraudsters, many of whom preyed on elderly victims, being cut off from access to the U.S. banking system.

Mr. Sweet’s efforts combatting consumer fraud have been recognized by courts in private litigation. In Faloney v. Wachovia in a class action in which victims received $170 million, the court stated: “The suit commenced by Faloney is indirectly related to the government’s PPC investigation and is based in large part on evidence unearthed by Assistant United States Attorney Sweet’s dogged pursuit of PPC, Wachovia, and the telemarketing industry.” 254 F.R.D. 204 (E.D. Pa. 2008). Mr. Sweet’s efforts on behalf of consumers also includes groundbreaking criminal prosecutions of illegal online payday lenders under RICO’s loansharking provision.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Mr. Sweet represented the United States in hundreds of matters in federal courts. Mr. Sweet led dozens of False Claims Act investigations and litigation concerning misconduct by health care companies, defense contractors, and other federal contractors and grantees, resulting in the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars for American taxpayers.

Mr. Sweet’s efforts included the prosecution of a war profiteering foreign company that settled civil claims and pleaded guilty to criminal charges for defrauding the Department of Defense in connection with the provision of food and water to United States forces in Afghanistan. Mr. Sweet also investigated and resolved claims against a major aerospace contractor that allegedly failed to comply with critical testing specifications in the manufacture of American warplanes, and also claims against a manufacturer of munitions sold to the U.S. Army.

Mr. Sweet has represented the United States in hundreds of cases brought against the United States in federal court. These include wrongful death, medical malpractice, constitutional tort, personal injury, employment discrimination, immigration, and other types of cases. In a unique matter, Mr. Sweet successfully represented the United States in a case concerning the ownership of ten 1933 Double Eagles – the last gold coins minted by the United States – that were stolen from the Mint in Philadelphia in 1933 and recovered by the United States in 2005.

Mr. Sweet received numerous awards during his service as a federal prosecutor, including the Department of Defense Inspector General’s Award for Excellence, an Award of Appreciation for Extraordinary Service from the Department of the Treasury, and commendations from other federal agencies, including the United States Secret Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice. Mr. Sweet twice was nominated for the Department of Justice’s highest award – the Attorney General’s Award.

Mr. Sweet served as an adjunct professor of law teaching Health Care Fraud and Abuse at Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law and at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law, and as an adjunct clinical professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey School of Law. For several years, Mr. Sweet was an instructor at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s training center for federal and state bank regulators, where he lectured on identifying and addressing consumer fraud. Mr. Sweet also has served on several Department of Justice task forces addressing mass market consumer fraud, including the Consumer Protection Working Group of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

Mr. Sweet is a cum laude graduate of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, where he served on the Law Review and received the Kranzel Award for the bet paper in state, local, or health law, among other awards. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction from George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs. Before attending law school, Mr. Sweet served as a Political Information Officer at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C, and ran a large poultry farm on a Kibbutz in northern Israel. Prior to his government service, Mr. Sweet also practiced law at a large Philadelphia-based law firm.

Mr. Sweet is immensely proud of his two children, both of whom are teachers. He lives in Philadelphia with two rescue dogs, Louie and Stewie, neither of whom has anything much to teach. Mr. Sweet has three times cycled from Jerusalem to the Red Sea city of Eilat in Israel to support environmental and co-existence efforts in the Middle East.