Bio

William Destefano is Chair of Stevens & Lee’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Group and a member of the Antitrust and Trade Regulation Practice Group. He has a long and successful history of defending corporations and individuals against federal criminal investigations and Bill is Chair of Stevens & Lee’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Group and a member of the Antitrust and Trade Regulation Practice Group. He has a long and successful history of defending corporations and individuals against federal criminal investigations and indictments and has represented clients in a broad range of commercial civil cases, including antitrust class actions and other claims that often follow or coincide with federal criminal or regulatory investigations. Bill has tried more than 100 criminal and civil cases to verdict over the last 50 years, primarily in the federal courts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He has a long history of consistently obtaining excellent outcomes at trial and in helping clients achieve non-prosecution decisions following lengthy state and federal investigations. Before entering private practice, he served as a trial attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Following his tenure with the DOJ, Bill was appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to represent indigent defendants charged with a wide range of felony criminal offenses. These appointments required several jury trials per year that increasingly resulted in not-guilty verdicts and he became increasingly sought out by companies and individuals under investigation for more complex economic crimes. During roughly the same time span, Bill represented the former Amoco Corporation (now British Petroleum) in dozens of civil cases filed in the federal courts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act. Nearly all of these civil jury trials resulted in defense verdicts. Bill went on to represent Amoco in commercial litigation regarding its drilling, refining and downstream marketing operations, including consumer class actions in Pennsylvania in New Jersey following the settlement of a Federal Trade Commission Consumer Fraud investigation involving the major oil companies. With the skill, experience and reputation gained during the first 20 years of his career, Bill has continued to defend numerous companies and individuals including corporate officers, professionals and elected officials in complex and high profile federal and state investigations as well as about 20 lengthy and complex jury trials during the last two decades. Because of his reputation and courtroom record, Bill has also been successful in obtaining non-prosecution decisions by the DOJ in high profile antitrust, political corruption and fraud investigations and has been able to negotiate favorable settlements in class actions and individual antitrust and trade regulations cases.