Cynthia DeGabrielle
Cynthia brings a wealth of trial attorney experience to Irelan | Stephens. With 40 years of legal experience, including 23 years as an Assistant United States Attorney in Houston, Cynthia has prosecuted complex financial crimes, international money laundering, and public corruption, both foreign and domestic. Cynthia has tried more than 50 federal criminal cases to jury verdict, and served as U.S. Department of Justice Law Enforcement Policy Advisor to numerous foreign governments by providing technical legal assistance, justice policy guidance and international best practices. Her experience at international law firms, and handling of numerous resolutions of civil trials, criminal investigations, regulatory hearings, and advice to clients on compliance, risk analysis, and remediation makes her a valuable asset to any case anywhere.
Cynthia’s vast legal career includes general commercial litigation, including breach of contract and fraud, specialized energy and power litigation, product liability, specialized insurance litigation including defending bad faith claims against carriers, and cases involving highly technical and scientific industries under the Defend Trade Secrets Act.
Credentials
Education
- University of Tulsa College of Law, Tulsa, Oklahoma Juris Doctor
- University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma B.B.A. in Finance, With Distinction
Bar Admissions
- State Bar of Texas
- U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of Texas
- Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
Member
- State Bar of Texas (since November 7, 1986)
- Houston Bar Association, Member, Litigation Section
- Houston Bar Foundation, Life Fellow
- American Land Title Association, Member
- Litigation Counsel of America, Fellow
- Texas Land Title Association, Member
- American Land Title Association, Member
- Texas State Bar College
Professional Highlights
- Resident Legal Advisor to the Republic of South Africa 2002-2004
- Intermittent Legal Advisor to Romania 2001
- Intermittent Legal Advisor to Thailand 2007
- Intermittent Legal Advisor to Russia 2006
U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, “Anti-Corruption (Joint Ventures) Q and A: United States,” Practical Law, Thomson Reuters, 2017, 2019
Co-author, “Potential disaster relief fraud cases loom in Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria’s wake,” Dentons Client Alert, September 25, 2017
Contributing author, Federal Grand Jury Practice, United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Education, October 2008
Contributing author, Federal Narcotics Prosecutions, United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Education, February 1999 and March 2004
Author, International Efforts to Combat Money Laundering, Croatian Annual of Criminal Law and Practice, December 2001 (and other publications in English and French)
Author, “The Federal Grand Jury,” Docket Call magazine, May 1999
Contributing author, Federal Practice & Procedure, a Manual for Federal Prosecutors, United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Education, 1997
Author, “Settling Natural Gas Contract Disputes: The Pipeline Perspective,” 3 Natural Resources & Environment 7 (Winter 1989), Section of Natural Resources Law, American Bar Association
Author, “Will Delay Rentals Excuse Failure to Protect Against Drainage: Author, “Rogers v. Heston Oil Co.,” 20 Tulsa L.J. 456, 1985
Author, “Amarex, Inc. v. Baker: Skidding the Rig and Continuous Operations,”55 Okla. B.J. 1085, May 26, 1984
Instructor at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Gaborone, Botswana, on many topics relating to investigations, preservation of evidence, due process, MLATs, and global Financial Intelligence Centers.
Instructor for many NGOs including the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative and the Basil Institute, as well as the U.S. departments of State and Justice, in long-form seminars tailored to the needs of the attorney population, including in Kiev, Ukraine (public corruption), Nairobi, Kenya (financial crimes), Bangkok, Thailand (witnesses and contempt), Bucharest, Romania (judicial system integrity), Moscow, Russia (jury trials in capital murder cases), Maputo, Mozambique (judicial ethics code and enforcement), Kigali, Rwanda (post-genocide issues), Lusaka, Zambia (corruption and kleptocracy) and Zagreb, Croatia (international money laundering).
Instructor for the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Education on many topics, including:
- Trial Advocacy (Basic and Advanced)
- Grand Jury Secrecy
- Closing Argument
- Evidence in White Collar Cases
- Immunity and the Fifth Amendment
- Trial Preparation and Case Management in Complex Cases
- Effective Writing for Advocates
- Recent Supreme Court Developments
- Money Laundering
- Criminal Discovery
- Mortgage Fraud
- Designed and implemented a comprehensive year-long training program on federal criminal law and discovery for paralegals and legal secretaries in the Southern District of Texas.
- “Energy Market Deregulation in Mexico: Compliance Risk Factors for U.S. Businesses”
- “Corporate Liability for Worker Deaths in Fragile Governance Zones by Non-State Actors”
- “How U.S. Laws Impact Financial Regulatory and Anti-Money Laundering Compliance in Mauritius”
- “Developments in U.S. Anti-Money Laundering Enforcement”
- “Criminal Risk Management for Chinese Businesses Under U.S. Law, Including Arrest and Extradition: the Huawei Case”
- “Due Diligence and the State of Enforcement: Identifying and Mitigating Risks”
- “Legal Risk Emergence for Businesses Operating in the US and China: the ZTE Matter”
- “China’s International Criminal Judicial Assistance Law: What Foreign Companies Need to Know”
- “Privileges for In-House Counsel in International Investigations”
- “Global Enforcement Trends: U.S. and South Africa”
- “United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Webinar for China”
- “Being Prepared for an Investigation in the African Banking Sector”
- “Money Laundering under South African and U.S. Laws”
- “U.S. Global Anti-Money Laundering Enforcement”
- “Compliance Responses to Global Enforcement Trends”
- “Developments in U.S. Anti-Money Laundering Enforcement”
- “Anti-Corruption, Compliance Programming and Africa”
- “U.S. Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative”
- “FCPA in Africa and Case Studies; The Long Arm of the Law”
Contact
Practice Areas
- Commercial Litigation
- Energy & Power Litigation
- Product Liability
