Firm Profile

Joseph A. Bondy is the founding principal of Joseph A. Bondy, PLLC and a New York City trial lawyer. His practice spans criminal defense, cannabis law, civil and criminal securities matters, regulatory proceedings, federal sentencing, extradition and international matters, and crisis representations in which legal exposure, business risk, and public controversy often move at the same time.

A graduate of Columbia University and Brooklyn Law School, Mr. Bondy began his career in Manhattan criminal defense practice and established his own firm in 1996. Over time, he built a practice defined by difficult cases, substantial trial work, careful preparation, and advocacy that is disciplined, strategic, and effective.

For more than three decades, Mr. Bondy has represented clients at every stage of the criminal process, including investigation, indictment, trial, sentencing, appeal, forfeiture, and post-conviction litigation. He has tried RICO, murder, money laundering, marijuana, narcotics-trafficking, securities-fraud, and bribery cases to verdict. His criminal and related matters have also included organized-crime prosecutions, complex financial cases, treaty-based sentencing issues, extradition matters, and representations involving individuals apprehended abroad and returned to the United States.

Among other significant matters, Mr. Bondy represented Peter Gotti in a major prosecution in the Southern District of New York involving allegations of organized-crime leadership, conspiracy to murder Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, and participation in the so-called Concrete Commission. He has also secured federal acquittals in serious fraud-related prosecutions and numerous below-Guidelines outcomes over government objection through sustained sentencing advocacy. Throughout his career, he has approached sentencing as a critical stage of advocacy, not an afterthought.

A defining feature of Mr. Bondy’s practice is its unique depth. He is not simply a criminal defense lawyer who later added cannabis work, nor a regulatory lawyer borrowing the language of trial practice. His work genuinely bridges both worlds. Long before cannabis law became fashionable, he was representing clients in criminal, licensing, compliance, business, and crisis-management matters in the space. He was also a member of the legal team in Marvin Washington, et. al. v. Barr, the landmark federal challenge to cannabis’s Schedule I classification.

Bondy has helped clients secure hemp cultivation, CBD processing, cannabis processing, CAURD, and adult-use retail dispensary licenses in New York’s highly regulated cannabis market. He also has successfully litigated PCA variance matters, protecting clients’ ability to obtain, preserve, and operate under valuable cannabis licenses.

Mr. Bondy’s public-facing matters have ranged widely. They include the representation of Lev Parnas in criminal and SEC-related matters; the representation of Raymond Trapani in the Centra Tech cryptocurrency-fraud proceedings; and representations before the Federal Election Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and in other civil and criminal securities matters.

Mr. Bondy is a current member of the International Bar Association and is available to represent American citizens detained abroad. His international work includes treaty-related sentencing issues, extradition matters, and representations involving individuals apprehended through Interpol channels. These matters often demand not only technical knowledge, but urgency, discretion, and the ability to coordinate legal strategy across jurisdictions.

Mr. Bondy serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and has long been active in public education, speaking, and reform efforts. He founded In the Know 420, an early radio and streaming program focused on cannabis law and policy, and remains a frequent commentator on criminal justice, cannabis policy, and the politics of prosecution. He has also served as Vice President and a board member of the Cannabis Cultural Association.

He has long been committed to the profession itself. For more than twenty-five years, Mr. Bondy has served on the faculty of Cardozo Law School’s Intensive Trial Advocacy Program, helping train future litigators in the craft of trial practice. He lectures regularly on trial strategy, sentencing, cannabis law, and related issues, and is a lifetime member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

What distinguishes Mr. Bondy’s practice is not merely its reach, but its method. He prepares exhaustively. He speaks plainly. He understands that serious legal problems are rarely only legal problems. And he approaches every matter—whether confidential or highly public—with the same premise: the lawyer’s job is not merely to manage exposure, but to protect the client, confront the facts, and press every sound argument the law permits.