Kenneth A Polite Stepping Down, Effective March 24 2017 – Louisiana 2017

US Attorney Kenneth A Polite to Step Down, Effective March 24 2017

Kenneth A. Polite, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has announced that he has submitted his resignation to President Trump and Attorney General Sessions, effective on March 24, 2017.

Polite stated, “I have enjoyed this great opportunity to serve as U.S. Attorney here in Southeast Louisiana. More importantly, it has been the highest honor to lead this Office’s outstanding employees who are committed to the ideals of collegiality, diligence, and professionalism. I am confident that these public servants will continue to ensure that justice reaches out to all residents of this region. Regardless of my title or position, I will always work to improve the lives of our region’s residents, especially our young people.”

Polite, age 41, began his tenure in September 2013, during one of the most difficult periods in the Office’s history. He will depart after having focused on improving the Office’s prosecutorial efficiency and transparency, strengthening its regional collaboration with both law enforcement and the residents they serve, and fostering greater community interest in both prevention and reentry as necessary tools for improving public safety.

Polite realigned the Office’s personnel to better reflect its prosecutorial priorities. In addition to increasing the number of prosecutors handling violent crime matters, Polite established the Office’s first dedicated Public Integrity Unit, responsible for investigating public corruption and civil rights violations. He also strengthened the Office’s National Security Unit, adding six AUSAs to address terrorism, immigration, and environmental matters. Over the past 3.5 years, the Office’s enforcement efforts resulted in, among other matters, convictions of:

several multi-defendant gang organizations responsible for terrorizing the region through drug trafficking, gun violence, and homicides; several high-profile political corruption defendants, including the former Mayor of New Orleans and the former District Attorneys of St. Tammany and St. Charles Parishes; various former law enforcement officers responsible for criminal violations of civil rights; numerous child pornographers throughout the country, particularly as part of Operation Roundtable; clinics, physicians, and medical staff, as part of multi-million-dollar health care fraud schemes; individual and corporate polluters of the region’s waterways; and more human traffickers than in any prior U.S. Attorney’s tenure in the Office’s history, including the country’s first conviction of a motel operator for benefitting from sex trafficking.

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