The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria is expanding its financial fraud unit as part of a U.S. Justice Department effort to crack down on scams that authorities believe will stem from the billions of government dollars spent to during the early days of the economic crisis. The head federal prosecutor in Northern Virginia, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride, has created a new second-in-command position for his office’s fraud unit and is in the process of hiring three new fraud prosecutors. Last month, MacBride hired Paul Nathanson, a former senior Treasure Department lawyer, for the same unit. “With the billions in federal spending being directed at recovery efforts, the potential for fraud is high,” MacBride’s spokesman, Peter Carr, said in a statement. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is expanding its fraud unit … to prosecute financial fraud, including securities fraud, mortgage fraud and potential fraud related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility.” MacBride has appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Connolly to deputy chief of the fraud unit. The position is new, and MacBride said Connolly will help “guide our efforts in tackling some of the most complex and challenging financial crimes we are facing in today’s economy.” Connolly has worked in the Alexandria-based eastern district of Virginia’s U.S. Attorney’s Office since 2002. From 2007 to 2009 he was acting deputy chief of staff to the U.S. attorney general, advising the nation’s top law enforcement official on political issues involving criminal law, corporate fraud, public corruption and congressional oversight. Carr said the office will also be competing for $234.6 million that the Justice Department has requested for its 2011 fiscal year that’s meant to fund more than 700 new position to “restore confidence in our markets, protect the treasury and defend the interests of the U.S. government,” the Justice Department said in a statement. Justice says it needs the funds to improve its ability to collect debts, enforce tax laws and prosecute to create “high rates of return on the federal government’s investment of resources through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” The act is more commonly referred to as the Obama administration’s stimulus plan.
