John Thomas Clarkson

Tom is a former federal prosecutor who represents businesses and individuals in government investigations, False Claims Act litigation, complex civil litigation, and white collar criminal defense.

Before founding Griffin Durham Tanner and Clarkson, Tom led a nationally recognized Department of Justice unit responsible for prosecuting complex civil and criminal fraud out of the Southern District of Georgia. In addition to his supervisory responsibilities, he led some of the office’s most complex and significant criminal cases in the office. During his tenure with the Department of Justice, he tried cases involving public corruption, health care fraud, pill mills, wire/mail fraud, and violent crime — all resulting in guilty verdicts. Tom has also led investigations resulting in numerous plea agreements related to various types of fraud involving over $1.5 billion dollars, including prosecutions of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, marketers, and executives. In FY 2019, he led his unit to become the third most productive criminal health care fraud unit in the entire Department of Justice. Tom also prosecuted some of the first COVID-19 fraud cases in the district, including cases involving the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans.