Wifredo Ferrer (gov)

Wifredo Ferrer (University of Miami, University of Pennsylvania Law School) is nominated to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He would replace R. Alexander Acosta, who became the dean of Miami’s Florida International University Law School on July 1, 2009. The district’s current acting U.S. Attorney is Jeffrey H. Sloman.

Ferrer’s vitals:

• Born in Miami in 1966.
• Since 2006 has been an assistant count attorney and chief of the federal litigation section at the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s office.
• Worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 2000 to 2006 in the Southern District of Florida in Miami.
• Was counsel and deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Janet Reno at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., from 1995 to 2000.
• Was a White House fellow and special assistant to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros in Washington, D.C., from 1994 to 1995.
• Worked as an associate in the litigation department of Steel Hector & Davis (now Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP) in Miami from 1991 to 1994.
• Clerked for then-District Court Judge Stanley Marcus in the Southern District of Florida from 1990 to 1991.
• Clerked for Steel Hector & Davis during the summer of 1989.
• Clerked for Greenberg Traurig LLP in Miami during the summer of 1988.
• Has tried eight criminal cases to judgment, serving as lead counsel in seven of them and associate counsel in one. Also handled more than 20 evidentiary hearings in federal court.

Click here for his full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

UPDATE: On his Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure Ferrer reported earning a salary of $228,209 from the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s office. On his Senate Judiciary financial disclosure he reported assets of $1.83 million, mostly from three residences, and liabilities of $249,500, mostly from a mortgage, for a net worth of $1.58 million.

Wifredo Ferrer (gov)

A former deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Janet Reno is expected to be nominated as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, The Miami Herald reports.

Wifredo Ferrer, who currently is an assistant Dade County, Fla., attorney, reportedly is undergoing a final FBI review before the nomination is made. If nominated and confirmed, Ferrer, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, would be the fourth lawyer of Cuban descent to be the U.S. Attorney in Miami, though only the first nominated by a Democratic president.

The last Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney in Miami, R. Alexander Acosta, became the dean of Miami’s Florida International University law school on July 1. Since then, veteran prosecutor Jeffrey Sloman has been running the office on an acting basis.

David Buckner (Kozyak Tropin Throckmorton)

Reno praised her former aide in an interview with the Herald.

“First of all, he understood better than anybody I’ve worked with how the federal government works with local and state governments,” Reno said, adding, “If I wanted to write the book about how to be the U.S. attorney, Willy would be one of my models.”

John Hogan, Reno’s former chief of staff, told the newspaper: “When you look at the power of the U.S. attorney and that office, it’s essential that someone with a good moral compass heads it.” Hogan told The Miami Herald he encouraged Ferrer early on to pursue the position.

Daryl Trawick (Gov)

Ferrer was one of three finalists for the office.  The others were  former Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Buckner of Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton in Miami; and Daryl E. Trawick, a Dade County, Fla. Circuit Court judge who stirred controversy by keeping a non-public secret docket at the request of state prosecutors to shield a drug informant.

Forbes magazine last week released its list of the top 10 CEOs who “showed enough greed, hubris and chutzpah” to give confessed Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff “a run for his (stolen) money.”

We’ve added some information that Forbes left off its list — the top federal prosecutors who get to go after these alleged financial fraudsters, even though some of the investigations began before their time.

Preet Bharara in his first major news conference Nov. 5. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney announced the arrests of 14 people in an alleged insider trading ring around hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam. (Getty Images)

Winning a conviction in a high-profile financial case adds a notch to a U.S. Attorney’s belt. A prosecutor might even get to step out at a news conference or two, as Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara did on Nov. 5 when announcing insider trading arrests related to the Galleon hedge fund run by billionaire Raj Rajaratnam.

To be sure, not everyone on the Forbes list is accused of an actual crime. With that caveat, we present Forbes’s “Biggest CEO Outrages of 2009″ list:

1. Lloyd Blankfein. The chairman and CEO made $73 million in 2007 and $25 million in 2008, as the economy entered a deep recession. Although his salary is not a legal offense, Forbes deemed it practically criminal.

2. John Thain. The former CEO of Merrill Lynch approved $3.62 billion in bonuses for his executives last December as the company was being taken over by Bank of America and reporting a fourth-quarter loss of $15.3 billion.

3. Raj Rajaratnam. The founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group was charged with insider trading which allegedly helped him earn more than $33 million in illicit profits. He is being prosecuted in Manhattan by Bharara’s office.

4. Byrraju Ramalinga Raju. The founder of the Indian outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services in January confessed to overstating the company’s profits and fabricating its cash balance of more than $1 billion. He hasn’t been charged.

5. Thomas Petters. The former CEO and chairman of Petters Group Worldwide was charged with orchestrating a $3.5 billion pyramid scheme fraud. He is being prosecuted by the office of Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones.

6. Edward M. Liddy. The former CEO of American International Group (AIG) faced criticism this year for high salaries and bonuses in addition to expensive retreats the company funded after receiving a considerable sum as part of the bank bailout of 2008.

7. Danny Pang. The founder of Private Equity Management Group was accused of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Pangdied of an apparent suicide in September at age 42. Had he lived, he would have been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, currently headed by acting U.S. Attorney George S. Cardona.

8. R. Allen Stanford. The Texas financier allegedly sold $7 billion worth of certificates of deposit through his Stanford International Bank and misappropriated most of the money. He is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, currently headed by interim U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson. UPDATE: Stanford also is being prosecuted by the fraud section of DOJ’s criminal division.

9. David Rubin. The head of CDR Financial Products was indicted in October on charges of conspiracy and fraud related to rigging auctions to help determine which banks would assist governments in raising money. He will be prosecuted by Bharara’s office in Manhattan.

10. Robert Moran. The CEO of Moran Yacht & Ship pleaded guilty to tax fraud to avoid indictment. He also promised to pay back taxes and penalties and cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service. He was prosecuted by the office of  R. Alexander Acosta, then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

Jeffrey Sloman, the First Assistant in the Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney’s Office, was named the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Miami-based office, The Associated Press reported this afternoon.

Sloman has worked at the Miami office for almost 20 years and oversaw 284 attorneys as the First Assistant, The AP said. We previously reported that Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, a Bush holdover, will become the dean of Miami’s Florida International University law school on July 1.

A commission established to recommend a permanent Miami U.S. Attorney will have public interviews in July, according to The AP.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida R. Alexander Acosta will become the dean of Miami’s Florida International University law school on July 1, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Alex Acosta

We previously reported that 14 of the 26 FIU law professors deemed Acosta “not acceptable” to be their new dean in a non-binding poll. The controversy stemmed from Acosta’s politics. He helped George W. Bush in the bitter 2000 Florida recount. Then in 2003, Bush nominated the Miami native to head the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice.

Acosta served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights from August 2003 to June 2005, presiding over a period of intense turmoil. During his tenure, the division approved then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) extraordinary mid-decade redistricting plan that ending up giving the Texas GOP five new House seats. (The DOJ said at the time that Acosta had recused himself from the Texas decision but didn’t explain why).

Also during Acosta’s tenure, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brad Schlozman carried out his reign of terror against career staff attorneys perceived to be liberal Democrats. Read the Justice Department Inspector General report on Schlozman’s improper partisan hiring decisisons here.

After Harvard Law School, Acosta clerked for Samuel A. Alito, Jr., now a Supreme Court Justice, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He also worked in the Washington office of Kirland & Ellis.

The Southern District of Florida is one of the most prestigious U.S. Attorney offices in the nation, with one of its busiest workloads. As U.S. Attorney, Acosta focused on health care fraud (Miami, along with Los Angeles, launched a Medicare fraud “strike force”  in 2007. Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced May 20 the Obama administration is expanding those strike forces to Detroit and Houston). He also prosecuted accused al-Qaeda “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla and the Repubulican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

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In a non-binding poll, 14 of the 26 law professors at Florida International University in Miami deemed U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta “not acceptable” to be their new dean, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The Bush-appointed Acosta, 40, is one of 10 finalists for the job. The story didn’t provide any answers as to what exactly the law faculty objected; the Sun-Sentinel is owned by bankrupt Tribune Co., and likely doesn’t have enough money to pay for more reporting.

Pat Fitzgerald isn’t the only prominent Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney being asked to stay on in the Obama administration, at least temporarily. Alex Acosta, a Federalist Society member and former acting head of the civil rights division at DOJ, will stay on in Miami for now, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

Acosta earned accolades for vigorous prosecution of health care fraud and public corruption. He also deployed a rarely used 1994 law to prosecute the son of the former president of Liberia for torture. Chuckie Taylor Jr.’s mistake was to stop over at Miami International Airport, where he was detained. Acosta is a leading candidate for dean of Florida International University’s law school. Read an interview with Acosta here.

The Obama administration has asked all Bush-appointed US Attorneys to stay on until successors are confirmed. It could have, as the Clinton administration did in 1993, asked for blanket resignations and used Assistant US Attorneys to hold down the forts in the 93 federal prosecutor offices  around the country until new leaders were confirmed.

But the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys asked the Obama administration in a Dec. 16 letter to spare their offices such turmoil, given how much the Bush administration had already rocked their world. The group endorsed keeping the current USAs on the job. “This model is less political, leaves each United States Attorney’s Office in the hands of stable, experienced leadership working under the direction of the Attorney General, and allows for an orderly transition between United States Attorneys,” the letter read. Currently 54 Bush-appointed US Attorneys remain in office, the Miami Herald says, citing DOJ figures.