Federal Prosecutor

A former federal prosecutor in Philadelphia has been slated for a job in the Clinton administration as an assistant Treasury secretary, a position that will put him at the forefront of such issues as the Branch Davidian assault in Waco and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Richard L. Scheff, 38, of Center City, has been tapped to become assistant secretary for enforcement. If his selection is confirmed, he would be in charge of the Secret Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the U.S. Customs Service; and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.

Did you hear the one about the top federal prosecutor who went to work for a baseball club and threatened to fire anyone caught stealing bases? To the contrary, outgoing U.S. Attorney Mike Stiles, always a hometown fan, will be cheering on the Phillies to steal as many bases as they can when he joins the team as vice president for operations and administration. Stiles, a former city homicide judge and prosecutor who spent the past 7 1/2 years as the top federal prosecutor for Philadelphia and other counties in Eastern Pennsylvania, starts with the Phillies on April 2. "It's just a very exciting opportunity to be involved with a Philadelphia sports institution," Stiles said yesterday, after telling his staff he was resigning and putting his license to practice law on the back burner.

The Street administration plans to name Kenneth Trujillo, a former federal prosecutor and a leader in the city's Latino community, as city solicitor, according to an administration source and another source with knowledge of the impending appointment. Trujillo, a partner in the seven-lawyer firm of Trujillo, Rodriguez & Richards, would be the first Latino named as the city's top lawyer, a post that pays about $120,000 and involves representing the city in a variety of legal matters.

Charles M. Oberly III, a prominent Wilmington defense lawyer and former Delaware attorney general, is expected to be named U.S. attorney for Delaware soon, sources said. That announcement, coupled with the likely nomination of Zane Memeger for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, would leave just one U.S. attorney's slot open in the region - the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Last year, Paul J. Fishman was confirmed as U.S. attorney for New Jersey and Robert S. Cessar was confirmed for Western Pennsylvania.

If John J. Farmer Jr. becomes attorney general, he will have one thing on his resume that his two immediate predecessors lacked: crime-fighting experience. Farmer - nominated yesterday by Gov. Whitman and considered a safe bet to be confirmed by the state Senate - prosecuted drug runners, mobsters, and white-collar criminals as an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey from 1990 to 1994, winning a special-achievement award from the Justice Department in 1993. Farmer said yesterday that, if confirmed, he intends to go after corrupt local officials, and said he would strengthen the unit in the Department of Law and Public Safety that focuses on public integrity.

HARRISBURG - Three weeks after being sworn in, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane has delivered on a promise to name a top aide to review the handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse case. Kane on Monday appointed H. Geoffrey Moulton Jr., a former Philadelphia federal prosecutor who led the inquiry into the botched 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, as her special deputy to head the review. "Mr. Moulton is a highly respected former federal prosecutor who will assist us in providing a comprehensive and independent examination of the facts surrounding the handling of the Sandusky investigation," Kane said in a statement.

THE STATE attorney general may be the commonwealth's chief law enforcement officer, but you wouldn't know it after two decades of listless Republican control. A belief in limited government has its place, but not in an office that demands a tough go-getter. That's why this page has endorsed Jim Eisenhower over his opponent Tom Corbett. Eisenhower, a former aide to President Bill Clinton on national security issues and a former federal prosecutor, has both the smarts and vision to make the A.G.'s office a true advocate for Pennsylvanians.

YORK - A central Pennsylvania author being sued for defamation has been ordered to pay the plaintiff $10,000 for failing to adequately respond to pretrial questions. A York County judge yesterday ruled that William Keisling's 174 pages of answers were unresponsive to the lawsuit's allegations. Russell Wantz Jr., owner of a detective agency, alleges that Keisling published defamatory material about him in the book "The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna. " Luna, 38, was a federal prosecutor from Baltimore found dead in a rural Pennsylvania creek in December 2003.

Richard J. Zack, a federal prosecutor who handled political corruption cases, has joined the law firm of Pepper Hamilton L.L.P. Zack, who worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for 12 years, is a partner in the law firm's white-collar and corporate investigations and commercial litigation practice groups, the firm announced Monday. He was chief of commercial and consumer fraud and deputy chief of economic crimes in the U.S. Attorney's Office. Zack was involved in the prosecution of Corey Kemp, the former Philadelphia city treasurer who was sent to prison for corruption.

Give a creativity-in-spin award to James Eisenhower for defending his law firm's questionable practices in the Philadelphia Housing Authority's legal-billing scandal ("HUD tells PHA to justify $1 million in legal fees, or repay it," July 22). He was, he said, "ethically and aggressively representing the interests of his clients. " Excuse me, but what kind of aggressive representation goes on at a dinner party, a rally, and ribbon cuttings? The Inquirer stories have brought out the real travesty that occurred.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused a Texas federal prosecutor Monday of tapping into a "deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice" in his questioning of a black man facing a drug charge. The justices did not accept Bongani Charles Calhoun's request that the court review his conviction, but Sotomayor appended a scathing statement to make sure that the court's denial was not be seen as a signal of "tolerance of a federal prosecutor's racially charged remark. " Sotomayor did not name Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Ponder in her statement, but she denounced his questioning of Calhoun, who maintained in court that he did not know that the friends with whom he was traveling were planning a drug deal.

  HARRISBURG - Though his job will be to work as quietly as possible behind the scenes, former Philadelphia federal prosecutor H. Geoffrey Moulton Jr. could become the most closely watched person in Harrisburg this year. And those who know him say Moulton is well-suited to the tricky task at hand. Last week, the state's new attorney general, Democrat Kathleen Kane, tapped him to reexamine, step by step, how investigators for a previous attorney general - Republican Tom Corbett - went after child molester Jerry Sandusky.

HARRISBURG - Three weeks after being sworn in, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane has delivered on a promise to name a top aide to review the handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse case. Kane on Monday appointed H. Geoffrey Moulton Jr., a former Philadelphia federal prosecutor who led the inquiry into the botched 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, as her special deputy to head the review. "Mr. Moulton is a highly respected former federal prosecutor who will assist us in providing a comprehensive and independent examination of the facts surrounding the handling of the Sandusky investigation," Kane said in a statement.

The NHL's lawsuit against its players was assigned to a relatively new federal judge who is a longtime New York Yankees fan and a former federal prosecutor. The sides did not talk Sunday, the 92d day of a lockout that threatens to wipe out an entire NHL season for the second time in nine years. NHL players started voting on whether to have their union give up collective bargaining rights, a "disclaimer of interest" that could be a precursor to an antitrust suit. The league argued in a 43-page suit Friday in federal court in Manhattan that the union's actions were a bargaining maneuver and asked that the lockout be declared legal.

Albert Kleiner, 51, a Philadelphia native who became a prosecutor in Arizona, died Sunday, Nov. 4, of melanoma at a hospice in Tucson. For the last nine years, Mr. Kleiner was an assistant attorney general in the Tucson office of the U.S. Justice Department, where he focused on white-collar crime. "Because he was principled and a person of integrity, he was constantly looking for an occupation where he could make a difference," said his brother, Michael. "He was adept at whatever he tried.

TRENTON - New Jersey's economic development agency has tapped as its new chief executive officer a top aide to Gov. Christie and former longtime federal prosecutor who was once embroiled in a controversy over a $46,000 loan she got from Christie when he was a U.S. attorney. The board of the Economic Development Authority on Wednesday selected Michele Brown for the $225,000 job as part of a restructuring. CEO Caren Franzini announced she would step down on Sept. 30 after 21 years to pursue opportunity in the private sector.

At his sentencing Tuesday, a federal prosecutor said Robert Stinson, Jr. had a three-decade long career as a "cunning and deadly" con man. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson entenced the five-time fraudster to more than 33 years in federal prison. Authorities said Stinson, 57, bilked at least 263 investors out of more than $14 million in a Ponzi scheme that was shut down by Securities & Exchange Commission in 2010. Stinson's scheme collapsed in June 2010 when law enforcement officials raided the Philadelphia offices of his company, Life's Good, Inc., which Stinson started in 2006.

IT'S JUST NOT done - a public defender asking a prosecutor to talk with a criminal defendant out of a belief that the charge against him is unfair. Joanne Epps, then in the U.S. Attorney's Office, got such a call from federal defender Maureen Rowley in the '80s. Joanne's reaction: "I'm a federal prosecutor, no way," she said. But Maureen explained that the young man, who was about to enter the military and had his life ahead of him, would be ruined by a conviction on a gun charge.

Richard J. Zack, a federal prosecutor who handled political corruption cases, has joined the law firm of Pepper Hamilton L.L.P. Zack, who worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for 12 years, is a partner in the law firm's white-collar and corporate investigations and commercial litigation practice groups, the firm announced Monday. He was chief of commercial and consumer fraud and deputy chief of economic crimes in the U.S. Attorney's Office. Zack was involved in the prosecution of Corey Kemp, the former Philadelphia city treasurer who was sent to prison for corruption.

Give a creativity-in-spin award to James Eisenhower for defending his law firm's questionable practices in the Philadelphia Housing Authority's legal-billing scandal ("HUD tells PHA to justify $1 million in legal fees, or repay it," July 22). He was, he said, "ethically and aggressively representing the interests of his clients. " Excuse me, but what kind of aggressive representation goes on at a dinner party, a rally, and ribbon cuttings? The Inquirer stories have brought out the real travesty that occurred.