A crippling blizzard pounding the East Coast has forced nearly a dozen U.S. Attorney’s offices to close and has curtailed Justice Department operations in Washington today, according to DOJ officials.

A weekend snowstorm shut down the Justice Department on Monday. (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

Many DOJ employees who work at DOJ headquarters in Washington and at U.S. Attorney’s offices stretching from Virginia to Rhode Island are working from home on BlackBerries, cell phone and laptops, the officials said.

The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, the DOJ’s main building, is open for essential personnel who are able to make it through the heavy snow and 40 mile per hour winds. There are about 25,300 people who work for DOJ agencies in the Washington area, according to CNN.

Several U.S. Attorney’s offices and DOJ headquarters have been closed or have had limited operations since Monday because of a storm that brought more than a foot of snow to most of the East Coast last weekend, according to reports here and here.

Today’s storm hit while authorities were still struggling to clean up from the last one.

The U.S. Attorney’s offices that are closed today are in:

• Maryland. The office was also closed on Monday.

• The District of Columbia. The office has been closed since Monday.

• The Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria office). The office has been closed since Monday.

• The Western District of Virginia (Charlottesville and Harrisonburg offices).

• The Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

• The Middle District of Pennsylvania.

• The Western District of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh and Johnstown offices).

• The Eastern District of New York.

• New Jersey.

• Rhode Island.

• Delaware.

U.S. Attorney’s offices in the Eastern District of Arkansas, Western District of Arkansas, Northern District of Oklahoma, Western District of Tennessee and Kansas were shuttered on Monday because of the weather, according to CNN. The Eastern District of Arkansas U.S. Attorney’s Office was also closed on Tuesday, CNN said.

DOJ spokesperson Gina Talamona told Main Justice that DOJ public safety and national security functions are “operational.” She added that the DOJ has made special arrangements for its legal division attorneys to work during the storms and keep up with court deadlines.

This report has been corrected from an earlier version.

Steven Dettelbach (ohio.gov)

Steven Dettelbach, who was sworn in Monday as Northern Ohio’s new U.S. attorney, says he will put a renewed focus on civil rights enforcement and financial fraud.

“After 9/11, we had to divert a lot of resources to anti-terrorism activities and we need to continue to do that,” Dettelbach said in an interview with WKYC-TV. ”We need to re-focus our efforts on things like fighting economic crime, because people in the community need to understand that a free market also has to be a fair market.”

Dettelbach was one of six U.S. attorneys confirmed by unanimous consent on Sept. 15.  He was sworn in at the Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Cleveland today. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) administered the oath of office.

Dettelbach jointed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in 1992 as a trial lawyer. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Cleveland assigned to the Organized Crime and Corruption Task Force from 2003 until he left for private practice in 2006. Before his selection as U.S. Attorney, Dettelbach was a partner at Baker & Hostetler, splitting time between the firm’s Washington and Cleveland offices.

In another interview, Dettelbach said that that fighting terrorism would remain his top focus, but he would devote resources to other problems as well.

“We have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time…we have to keep the level of protection against terrorism at the same place it’s been and, at the same time, we have to get back to the bread-and-butter work of federal investigators because threats don’t just come from terrorists,” said Dettelbach.

Dettelbach’s office is currently prosescuting a huge corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County and a civil rights case involving a white supremacist who mailed a noose to an Ohio chapter of the NAACP.

Northern District of Oklahoma U.S. Attorney David O’Meilia stepped down from his post on Sunday to join a Tulsa, Okla. law firm, Tulsa World reported this afternoon.

O’Meilia became the U.S. Attorney in 2001. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1986 to 1996, according to Tulsa World. O’Meilia will join Richards & Connor to assist the Tulsa law firm with white-collar criminal defense and civil litigation, Tulsa World reported.

“It’s been the greatest privilege of my life to serve the nation and this community,” O’Meilia told Tulsa World.

O’Meilia’s office was noted for its work to prevent youths from joining gangs. It was also scrutinized for the failed prosecution of former Commercial Financial Services President Bill Bartmann in 2003 for the 1998 collapse of his company, Tulsa World reported. But the Bartmann prosecution started before O’Meilia became U.S. Attorney and was led by DOJ prosecutors from Washington, according to Tulsa World.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Woodward will take over as U.S. Attorney until a replacement is picked by President Obama.

Northern District of Oklahoma U.S. Attorney David E. O’Meilia will resign on June 28 to join a Tulsa law firm, The Associated Press reported this evening.

President Bush nominated O’Meilia for the post in 2001. O’Meilia was a Tulsa County Assistant District Attorney and an Assistant U.S. Attorney before his appointment.