Michael Rubinstein brings to the firm more than two decades of experience as an assistant United States Attorney, as well as outstanding academic credentials. Michael is a member of the bar in Florida, New York and Alaska, and practices in the criminal and civil divisions of Cohen, Jayson & Foster. 

Michael Rubinstein came to Tampa from the United States Attorney’s Office in Detroit, Michigan, where he was attached to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. The task force was, at that time, engaged in the investigation and prosecution of organized groups involved in the importation of heroin from the Middle East and its distribution in the Detroit metropolitan area. It also prosecuted cases of unlawful diversion of pharmaceuticals by physicians, pharmacists and others. Upon joining the United States Attorney’s Office in Tampa in 1985, he began prosecuting narcotics and money laundering cases, and subsequently specialized in white collar crime as part of the Bank Fraud Task Force, the Economic Crimes Unit and the Health Care Fraud Group.

Michael was co-counsel in the internationally significant prosecution and trial of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and several of its officers based in Miami, Panama and London. BCCI was an Abu Dhabi-based “full service” financial institution with world-wide branch offices, which had laundered narcotics money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and the Medellin Cartel. Federal undercover agents had collected millions in cocaine proceeds in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami, and deposited it into local BCCI branches, where it was laundered through accounts in Europe and ultimately returned to its customers, drug kingpins in Latin America. A six-month federal trial culminated in the conviction of the bank and eleven BCCI officers. BCCI subsequently ceased doing business in the United States.

Michael has conducted many white collar federal grand jury investigations and has successfully tried numerous criminal cases in the United States District Courts, including charges of narcotics importation and distribution, money laundering, RICO, Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE), bank fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, healthcare fraud, bankruptcy fraud, defense contractor fraud, unlawful manufacture and sale of FDA unapproved pharmaceutical compounds, unlawful importation of adulterated foods and smuggling endangered wildlife.

Mr. Rubinstein served for five years in the Civil Division of the Tampa United States Attorney’s Office, where he successfully defended and tried Federal Tort Claims Act medical malpractice cases, constitutional torts and employment discrimination cases involving Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service.

• Florida, 2006
• New York State, 1968
• State of Alaska, 1968

• United States Department of Justice, Director’s Award
• Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Columbia Law School
• Phi Beta Kappa honor society, University of Michigan