West Palm Beach
The West Palm Beach branch office of the United States Attorney's Office is staffed by approximately 40 employees, including 26 criminal and asset forfeiture AUSAs, supported by administrative and support personnel.
The West Palm Beach branch Criminal Division consists of two general crimes sections, Criminal I and II. AUSAs assigned to the general crimes sections handle the investigation and prosecution of a broad range of federal criminal violations, including complex and comprehensive investigations and prosecutions of financial fraud crimes, large-scale drug trafficking and gang organizations, human smuggling, and public corruption matters.
AUSAs focus on a broad range of financial crimes, including mortgage fraud, bank fraud, Ponzi schemes, complex investment and securities fraud, corporate fraud, tax fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and other large scale mail and wire frauds. The West Palm Beach office also has a Health Care Fraud Task Force that specializes in the detection, investigation, and prosecution of health care fraud schemes targeting the Medicare program and private insurance carriers. AUSAs focusing on large-scale drug trafficking and gang organizations have brought brutal drug gangs to justice, achieving long prison sentences and death penalty verdicts on behalf of the community and the people of the United States. West Palm Beach AUSAs have successfully prosecuted many human smuggling organizations, and smuggling events, many of which have resulted in death. The West Palm Beach branch office has also earned wide-spread attention for the successful prosecutions of publically elected county and city officials on a myriad of corruption charges.
There are two asset forfeiture AUSAs assigned to the West Palm Beach branch office. They are involved in the forfeiture of assets derived from drug trafficking and other unlawful activity, such as mail and wire fraud. The asset forfeiture AUSAs assist the criminal prosecutors in forfeiture cases and pursue separate civil forfeitures, some of which are international in scope.
Fort Pierce
The Ft. Pierce branch office has one general criminal section (Criminal III), and covers five counties in Florida's Treasure Coast region: Martin; St. Lucie; Indian River; Okeechobee; and Highlands. Federal law enforcement agencies with resident offices in the Ft. Pierce area include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Internal Revenue Service, and Homeland Security Investigations. Due to the large geographical area, AUSAs and federal agencies often partner with state and local law enforcement.
The Ft. Pierce branch office is housed on the third floor of the Federal Courthouse in Ft. Piece. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Maynard works full time at this location, while a variety of District Judges from West Palm Beach and Miami ride circuit and cover cases indicted out of the Ft. Pierce Office. Five Ft. Pierce AUSAs staff this branch office. They handle the investigation and prosecution of a broad spectrum of federal criminal violations, from smaller reactive cases to complex long-term matters, including credit card fraud and identity theft, mortgage fraud, health care fraud, postal thefts, immigration and naturalization offenses, human trafficking and alien smuggling, narcotics trafficking, customs violations, money laundering, organized crime, federal tax violations, child pornography, Hobbs Act robberies, gang prosecution, bank robberies and firearms violations.