Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the DoJ announced today that Andrew Weissmann has been named Chief of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. Weissmann fills the position left vacant in September 2014 when Jeffrey H. Knox departed the DOJ to join law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. The Chief of the Fraud Section is responsible for leading the DoJ's prosecution of fraud cases including securities fraud, healthcare fraud, financial fraud and defense procurement fraud, as well as all FCPA criminal investigations and prosecutions in the United States. 

 

Weissmann rejoins the DoJ from his current post at NYU School of Law, where he is a Senior Fellow to both the Center for Law and Security and the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law. From 2011 to 2013, Weissmann served as General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation under former Director Robert S. Mueller.

 

Weissmann previously served in the DoJ. From 2002-2005, Weissmann was the Deputy and then the Director of the Enron Task Force in Washington, D.C., where he supervised the prosecution of more than 30 individuals in connection with the company’s collapse, including Jeffrey Skilling, Kenneth Lay, and Andrew Fastow. Weissmann was also an AUSA for 15 years in the Eastern District of New York, where he served as the Chief of the Criminal Division. Weissman was also a partner at Jenner & Block in New York for five years prior to joining the FBI.

 

Bloomberg reports that Weissmann worked with Caldwell on the Enron Task Force, where he was initially Caldwell’s deputy and later took over as Director when Caldwell departed the DoJ in 2004. He also worked under Loretta Lynch, President Obama's nominee to be the next Attorney General, while leading the Criminal Division at the Eastern District of New York.

Topics