On June 17, 2015, the Department of Justice paid tribute to David Margolis, NAFUSA member and long time friend of the U.S. Attorney community. Margolis is celebrating 50 years of service with the Department of Justice.
Margolis became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1965 in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1969, he joined the Organized Crime Strike Force, serving as the Attorney in Charge of the Cleveland Strike Force and then the Brooklyn Strike Force. He moved to Main Justice in 1976, as the Deputy Chief of the Organized Crime Section, and became the Chief in 1979.
In 1990, Margolis was named Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. In 1993, he was appointed Associate Deputy Attorney General, a position he continues to hold.
Speakers at last week’s celebration included NAFUSA members Chuck Rosenberg and Scott Schools as well as AG Loretta Lynch, DAG Sally Yates and Director Jim Comey.
The St. Louis Cardinals announced yesterday that they had retained the St. Louis law firm of Dowd Bennett to conduct an internal review of the allegations of hacking into the Houston Astros’s database. The Cardinals said they had retained the firm in February, well before it was disclosed this week that the F.B.I. was investigating whether the team had hacked into the database, which is used to track players and prospects.
The internal investigation is being led by NAFUSA members Jim Martin, shown above, and Ed Dowd, shown below, partners at Dowd Bennett. Martin said yesterday that high-level executives of the Cardinals were not involved in the hacking.
“With what we have done so far, I am 100 percent confident that this does not touch upper management,” Jim Martin, said. He added that he was sure the hacking did not involve people like John Mozeliak, the team’s general manager, or Bill DeWitt Jr., its chairman.
The New York Times reported “There has been no indication of how many employees might be under investigation, and Mr. Martin’s comments were the first to suggest that any wrongdoing could be limited to the lower levels of the Cardinals’ organization.”
The internal investigation is not finished and Dowd Bennett is also helping the team cooperate with the federal government.
NAFUSA board member and life member Kevin J. O’Connor has joined Point72 Asset Management as General Counsel, Point72 CEO Steve Cohen and President Doug Haynes announced on May 6, 2015.
“I am excited to join Point72 and its outstanding management team,” O’Connor said. “What made this opportunity so compelling was Steve and Doug’s clear commitment to continue doing what is necessary to build a world-class legal function that will help ensure that Point72 adheres to the highest ethical standards yet maintains its excellent performance. I look forward to being part of such a worthy endeavor.”
O’Connor began his legal career clerking for the Hon. William H. Timbers of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and subsequently joined the SEC, where he investigated securities fraud cases on behalf of the government.
After his service with the SEC, O’Connor returned to Connecticut and practiced law, becoming a partner at the then firm of Day, Berry & Howard in 2001. In 2002, he returned to public service when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve as the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, a position for which he was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate.
O’Connor served as U.S. Attorney until 2008 when President Bush nominated him to serve as Associate Attorney General, the third-highest ranking position at the DOJ in Washington, D.C. O’Connor was unanimously confirmed again by the Senate and served in that position until 2009.
While at DOJ, O’Connor also served, at the request of the Attorney General as Associate Deputy Attorney General and as Chief of Staff to the Attorney General.
In addition to his public service, O’Connor has a decade of private law firm experience, most recently serving as a partner in Bracewell & Giuliani, where chaired the firm’s white collar practice.
O’Connor graduated with High Honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1992 and earned his BA with Honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1989. He is involved in many non-profit organizations, serving as Vice Chair of the Board of St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, and the Ethics Resource Center.
Point72 Asset Management is a family office managing the assets of its founder, Steven A. Cohen, and eligible employees. Point72 primarily invests in discretionary long/short equities and makes significant quantitative and macro investments. The Firm’s long/short investment divisions are Point72 Asset Management and EverPoint Asset Management. Cubist Systematic Strategies is its quantitative business, Rubric Capital is its deep value, multi-strategy business, and Honeycomb Ventures is its high-growth, technology-focused venture capital investing business. The Firm is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and maintains offices in New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore. Point72 Asset Management, L.P. is a family office and does not seek, solicit or accept any external investments. www.Point72.com
The NAFUSA 2014 Bradford Award winners, Steven Sanders, John Gay, and Joseph Minish (shown above at the NAFUSA Boston conference), were recognized by Monty Wilkinson, Director of EOUSA, with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as a Criminal AUSA. This award reflects outstanding litigative accomplishments in the areas of violent crime, terrorism, public corruption, child exploitation, and various forms of fraud.
At a ceremony at Main Justice in June, the program included the following:
John Gay, Joseph N. Minish, and Steven G. Sanders (District of New Jersey) are recognized for their outstanding performance in the investigation and prosecution of Paul Bergrin, a former state and federal prosecutor. Bergrin used his law practice as a RICO enterprise through which he and others committed a series of racketeering acts. The outstanding work of Mr. Gay, Mr. Minish, and Mr. Sanders culminated in a two-month jury trial that resulted in convictions on all 23 counts of the indictment, including murder of a witness, conspiracy to murder a different witness, RICO, RICO conspiracy, violent crimes in aid of a racketeering enterprise, conspiracy to distribute narcotics, and a variety of other substantive crimes related to the distribution of narcotics and the operation of a prostitution business. Bergrin was sentenced to life in prison on September 23, 2013.
Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner and Sauber LLP today announced that NAFUSA life member Michael R. Bromwich, former Inspector General for the Department of Justice, has joined the firm as Senior Counsel. Bromwich will focus on corporate internal investigations and white-collar criminal defense.
Bromwich has practiced law for 35 years in the public and private sector. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1983-87); Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel: Iran –Contra (1987-89); Inspector General of the Department of Justice (1994-99); and at the personal request of President Obama, took over the country’s offshore drilling regulatory agency following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
From 1999-2010, Bromwich served as a partner and Chair of the Internal Investigations, Compliance & Monitoring Practice Group at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP in both its Washington, D.C. and New York offices. During that time he focused his practice on conducting internal investigations for companies, audit committees, special committees, and special litigation committees, and representing both companies and individuals in white-collar criminal investigations.
Bromwich will maintain the consulting firm – The Bromwich Group – that he established in 2012 and which focuses on independent monitoring, public affairs, crisis management, law enforcement, and offshore energy. He will practice law exclusively with and through Robbins Russell.
Bromwich received his A.B. from Harvard College, his Masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He was a panel member on internal investigations at NAFUSA’s 2014 conference in Boston.
A former Baltimore police officer was accused of agreeing with owners of a local repair shop to refer damaged cars to the shop in exchange for cash payments. Under settled precedent, this alleged conduct constitutes extortion “under color of official right.” See Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255, 2698, (1992). But the government went further and charged the former officer with a Hobbs Act violation by bringing a separate count for conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. The former officer was convicted and the conviction was affirmed by the Fourth Circuit.
Certiorari has been granted by the United States Supreme Court. According to NAFUSA member John Richter, a partner at King & Spalding, “The case presents an important question of statutory interpretation concerning the Hobbs Act: whether a conspiracy to extort ‘property from another’ under the Hobbs Act requires the government to show that the conspirators agreed to obtain property from someone outside the conspiracy.”
Richter has been seeking support from former United States Attorneys who are willing to join a brief in support of petitioner. The amicus brief is expected to be filed June 8 by Baker Botts.
When NAFUSA Board Member Catherine Hanaway was first elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1998, she was a freshman lawmaker in a body dominated by Democrats. By the time she left the House in 2004, she had become its first female Speaker in half a century. After her time in the House, President George W. Bush appointed her U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Since then, in the private sector, she has built a successful law practice. A mother-of-two who grew up in rural Nebraska and Iowa, Catherine Hanaway is now seeking to be elected as the governor of Missouri.
Lisa Rafferty is joining NAFUSA as Deputy Director, effective June 1. Lisa is a graduate of Michigan State University with degrees in Social Science / Employment Relations and Psychology. Lisa spent her early career working as a technical recruiter in Sydney, Australia, building Cisco Systems team in the region. After 5 years Lisa relocated back to the US continuing her career as an IT Recruiter for KPMG Consulting in their High Tech division. Lisa took a break from her career to raise her two children and is ready to re-enter the work force and is excited about the opportunity at NAFUSA.
Lisa Rafferty
Deputy Director
P.O. Box 1524
Brighton, Michigan 48116
Phone: 810-813-4867
lisarafferty27@gmail.com
On May 16, 2015, the NAFUSA officers and board members met in Nashville for their annual Spring meeting. The meeting was held at The Hermitage Hotel. As is the custom, members paid their own travel and hotel expenses.
President Matt Orwig reported on the early plans for the Scottsdale conference to be held on October 15-17 at The Phoenician. Registration is expected to begin in July. NAFUSA has nine sponsors for the conference, with more expected. A full list of sponsors can be found on the NAFUSA website and in each monthly newsletter.
Executive Director Rich Rossman reported that NAFUSA has 266 active members, including 60 life members (the latest being David Iglesias) and 24 senior members. Unfortunately 33 members have yet to pay their current dues, which were payable by February 28, 2015.
President Elect Greg Vega advised that the 2016 conference will be held on October 6-9, 2016, in San Diego at the Hotel Del Coronado.
The Board is shown in the photo below during their Saturday morning meeting at the hotel.
On the evening before the meeting, they enjoyed a boat cruise on the General Jackson Showboat on the Cumberland River. They were joined by Magistrate Joe Brown and his wife, Marilyn, Ed and Cindy Yarbrough, and Russ and Betty Dedrick. Joe, Ed and Russ are NAFUSA members in Tennessee, invited to join the board for the social events of the weekend.
Shown in the photo above (click on photo for a larger image):
Seated: Melissa Orwig, Ann Stevens, Susan Adzick, Patty Rossman, Marilyn Brown, Sue Farus, Cheryl Leone, Erica Stern, Julie Stephens, Cindy Daniel, Alice Martin, Yvonne Washington
Standing: Matt Orwig, Russ Dedrick, Chuck Stevens, Bob Cleary, Doug Jones, Bob Miller, Hal Hardin, Joe Brown, Rich Rossman, Greg Vega, Don Stern, Bill Leone, Terry Flynn, Jay Stephens, Jack Selden, Bart Daniel, Ken Wainstein, Ed Yarbrough, Cindy Yarbrough, Louis Martin, Don Washington
The social events began with a Thursday night performance of Grand Ole Opry Classics at Ryman Auditorium, golf on Friday morning, and closed with a reception hosted by Hal Hardin at his office, as shown below.
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