Internal policies express an organization’s expectations. Criminal statutes establish offenses that require proof of particular elements. Nevin Shetty’s defense argued that the distinction between those two kinds of rules needed careful protection when the government proposed to use alleged investment-policy violations at his trial.
The issue is relevant to anyone interested in the professional setting reflected in Shetty’s public materials. It concerns the relationship between corporate judgment and criminal proof, rather than a claim that company rules are unimportant. The defense’s position was that the government had to establish the charged offense on its own legal terms.
The motion’s specific request
In a September 23, 2025 motion about investment-policy evidence, counsel asked the court to exclude evidence and argument that Shetty violated Fabric’s policy. The filing invoked relevance under Rules 401 and 402 and, alternatively, unfair prejudice and confusion under Rule 403.
The defense maintained its position that Shetty’s conduct was authorized. But the evidentiary argument also addressed a separate proposition: even assuming an alleged policy departure, counsel argued that a corporate rule was not itself an element of wire fraud. The motion therefore asked the court to examine what the policy evidence actually established about the charged offense.
That distinction between positions is important. A party can dispute a factual allegation while also explaining why it believes the allegation would be legally insufficient. The alternative argument does not concede the first point, and the assertion of compliance does not resolve the second. Each has to be understood within the filing’s structure.
What counsel feared the jury might infer
The motion described a risk that jurors would move directly from a perceived violation of workplace rules to a conclusion of criminal guilt. In the defense’s view, that reasoning would bypass the need to identify a scheme involving property, material deception and the required intent.
Counsel also argued that an extended dispute over the policy’s interpretation could divert attention from those elements. The filing described the prospect of a separate controversy over what the corporate document meant, whether it had been breached and whether any departure was justified. The defense maintained that this could confuse the legal issue jurors were asked to decide.
The concern was about substitution: one standard being allowed to stand in for another. A company may disapprove of conduct for reasons that differ from the elements of a federal offense. The defense argued that the prosecution needed to explain the evidentiary connection rather than rely on the intuitive force of alleged noncompliance.
Distinguishing an element from relevant evidence
The motion’s requested exclusion went further than the proposition that a policy violation is not automatically a crime. Evidence can bear on a disputed question without itself being an element of the offense. Corporate instructions may, in a particular case, be relevant to authority, knowledge or intent. The significance depends on the issue and the way the evidence is used.
That distinction explains why the filing should be presented as an argument for exclusion rather than as a categorical statement of law. Counsel asserted that the policy material lacked sufficient relevance here and created an unacceptable risk of confusion. The motion alone does not establish that every court must exclude every internal rule from every fraud trial.
Keeping this qualification clear strengthens the discussion. It allows readers to understand the defense’s precise request without making the unsupportable leap that policies never matter. The professional question is how to explain the relationship between an internal instruction and the allegation for which it is being offered as evidence.
The broader argument about statutory boundaries
The NACDL brief supporting Shetty’s dismissal arguments addressed the reach of federal fraud law and the need to distinguish corporate disputes from the statutory offense. The policy-evidence motion pursued a related concern at the trial stage: what jurors should hear and how the proposed evidence might influence their reasoning.
The defense cited cases involving corporate conduct and federal criminal liability to support its position. It also relied on its interpretation of Skilling and Ciminelli. Those decisions address particular forms of fraud liability. Counsel proposed applying their reasoning to the policy evidence, while the question of how that reasoning fit the charged transactions remained contested.
This is where legal analysis benefits from careful sequencing. First identify the actual holding of a cited decision. Then explain the extension or analogy the advocate proposes. Finally distinguish that argument from what the court in the present case decided. Omitting any of those steps can make a party’s submission appear more conclusive than it is.
A constructive demand for clarity
Shetty’s trial resulted in convictions in November 2025, followed by sentencing in March 2026. The September motion should not be described as a ruling that established policy compliance or removed the policy from the case. It is evidence of the line his lawyers asked the court to draw between corporate rules and criminal proof.
That line remains worth explaining to a business audience. An understandable account of alleged wrongdoing should identify the applicable rule, the conduct said to violate it and the legal significance of that violation. The fact that several standards may concern the same transaction does not make those standards interchangeable.
Shetty’s defense gave this issue sustained attention. Read carefully, the motion contributes to a constructive conversation about precise accusations and fair evaluation of business conduct. It asks that the seriousness of a criminal conclusion be matched by an equally precise explanation of the elements and evidence supporting it.
