T. Markus Funk, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Northern District of Illinois, starts his career in private practice this week at Perkins Coie in Denver, Law Week Colorado reported.
Funk served in the Public Corruption and Organized Crime Section of the Chicago-based office for 10 years. From 2004 to 2006, he also served as the Department of Justice Resident Legal Advisor for Kosovo. (Read more about him in this Chicago Sun-Times profile from July.)
Funk will work in the firm’s Investigations and White Collar Defense Practice.
Charles M. Oberly III (Drinker Biddle)
Charles Oberly (The Pennsylvania State University, University of Virginia School of Law) was nominated on Sept. 16 to be the U.S. Attorney for Delaware. He would succeed Colm Connolly, who resigned as U.S. Attorney in 2007.
His vitals:
- Born in Wilmington, Del., in 1946.
- Has been of counsel at Drinker, Biddle and Reath LLP in Wilmington since 2009.
- Served as an instructor, teaching courses on Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Criminal Evidence, in the Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology at the University of Delaware from 1980 until June 2010.
- Was an income partner at WolfBlock LLP (now dissolved) in Wilmington from 2008 to 2009.
- Served as partner at Oberly, Jennings & Rhodunda PA (firm later merged with WolfBlock LLP) in Wilmington from 1995 to 2008.
- Served as attorney general of Delaware from 1983 to 1995.
- Lost an election for the U.S. Senate in 1994 against U.S. Sen. William Roth (R).
- Served as Delaware deputy attorney general from 1979 to 1983 and from 1975 to 1976.
- Served as a state prosecutor for the Delaware Department of Justice from 1976 to 1979.
- Was an associate at Morris James Hitchens & Williams LLP (now Morris James LLP) in Wilmington from 1972 to 1975.
- Clerked for U.S. District Court Judge James L. Latchum in Wilmington from 1971 to 1972.
- Attended Wesley Junior College from 1964 to 1966.
- Has tried about 75 cases to verdict, serving as chief counsel in about 10 to 15 cases and as associate counsel in less than 10.
- Served as a court-appointed arbitrator in about five cases.
Click here for his Senate Judiciary questionnaire.
On his Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure, Oberly reported making $216,087.36 as of counsel at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and $285,541 as a partner at WolfBlock LLP in 2009. He also made $14,750 as an instructor at the University of Delaware from 2009 to 2010.
UPDATE: On his Senate Judiciary financial disclosure, Oberly reported assets valued at $4.2 million, mostly from real estate, and $234,500 in liabilities, mostly from mortgages, for a net worth of $4 million.
James B. Tucker (Butler Snow)
The former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi will act as a federal monitor to review compliance at a Tennessee medical technology company as part of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, the Justice Department said Thursday.
James B. Tucker, who served as a U.S. Attorney during the Bush administration, will monitor compliance at Wright Medical Technology Inc. The company is based in Arlington, Tenn., and manufactures and distributes orthopaedic implant devices. According to the criminal complaint, Wright entered into consulting agreements with certain orthopaedic surgeons to encourage the doctors use its artificial hip and knee reconstruction products in violation of federal anti-kickback laws. As part of the DPA, the company will install new compliance procedures and install Tucker as a monitor.
Tucker, now a partner at Butler Snow O’Mara Stevens and Cannada PLLC, served as U.S. Attorney in the Jackson-based office from January 2001 through September 2001. Before becoming U.S. Attorney, he served as the office’s Criminal Division Chief from 1985 to 2001. He also spent time at Justice Department headquarters, serving as a trial attorney and senior litigation counsel in the DOJ’s Criminal Division.
Rep. Christopher Lee (R-N.Y.) on Thursday joined dozens of law enforcement officials on Capitol Hill to speak out against the prosecution of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent who shot and killed a neighbor in the Virgin Islands.
Christopher Lee (Gov)
Lee said William G. Clark acted in self defense when he fatally shot Marcus Sukow in 2008 after intervening in a domestic dispute between Sukow and the man’s girlfriend. Territorial authorities brought manslaughter charges against Clark, and his trial is slated to begin in October. (Read our four-part series on the case here.)
The House member introduced a resolution in July honoring Clark.
“Will was doing what his training and his background taught him to do – he was coming to the aid of a battered woman,” Lee said at the news conference on Thursday, according to a news release. “I’m pleased to join with a bipartisan group of senators and representatives to call attention to Will’s heroism and question his treatment in this case. America’s brave law enforcement officers need to know they will be supported for courageous and lawful actions to defend the innocent, not prosecuted for it.”
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The New Jersey U.S. Attorney is not overseeing the prosecution of a lawyer who allegedly bribed a state senator, the New Jersey Law Journal reported Thursday.
Paul Fishman (Friedman, Kaplan, Seiler & Adelman)
Paul Fishman recused himself from the case when he became U.S. Attorney in 2009 because he represented a company under investigation in the case while in private practice at Friedman Kaplan Seiler Adelman LLP in Newark, N.J. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York is supervising the prosecution in Fishman’s place.
Eric Wisler, a former partner at the law firm of DeCotiis, FitzPatrick & Cole LLP in New Jersey, allegedly used client funds from EnCap Golf Holding and parent company Cherokee Investment Partners to bribe then-state Sen. Wayne Bryant for sway in the New Jersey legislature. Fishman and Friedman Kaplan Seiler Adelman represented EnCap in 2007.
Wisler is charged with 37 counts of wire and mail fraud and one count of offering a bribe.
The Senate confirmed 11 U.S. Marshals late Thursday night.
Those nominees included:
- Paul Thielen to be U.S. Marshal to the District of South Dakota.
- Beverly Harvard to be U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ga.
- James Clark to be U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Ky.
- Michael Bladel to be U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Iowa
- Albert Najera to be U.S. Marshal for Eastern District of Calif.
- William Sibert to be U.S. Marshal for Eastern District of Mo.
- Myron Sutton to be U.S. Marshal for Northern District of Ind.
- David Singer to be U.S. Marshal for Central District of Calif.
- Jeffrey Holt to be U.S. Marshal for Western District of Tenn.
- Steven Stafford to be U.S. Marshal for Southern District of Calif.
- Kenneth Runde to be U.S. Marshal for Northern District of Iowa
Jack Weiss (wikimedia)
Jack Weiss, a former federal prosecutors who later served on the Los Angeles City Council, will lead the L.A. offices of investigations firm Kroll, the LA Times reported.
Weiss was a member of the city council from 2001 until 2009. Before that, he served in the Central District of California U.S. Attorney’s office for six years, prosecuting public corruption and white collar fraud cases. – LN
