Tracy L. Wilkison has been appointed as the Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California after former U.S. Attorney Nicola T. Hanna tendered his resignation to the President and the Acting Attorney General on January 4, 2020. The resignation of former U.S. Attorney Hanna will be effective on January 8, 2020, and U.S. Attorney Wilkison will subsequently take over in the Office then.
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Education and Early Career
Earning her Juris Doctorate from the Harvard Law School, U.S. Attorney Wilkison began her legal career as a Law Clerk under the Honorable Franklin VanAntwerpen of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and went on a fast track to the United States Attorney’s Office. In January of 1999, Tracy Wilkison joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California as an Assistant United States Attorney.
Legal Career
For about 13 years, beginning in 1999, U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison devoted all of her efforts to be a federal prosecutor and an official career civil servant for the Central District of California until she was given a bigger role of being the Deputy Chief of the General Crimes Section in 2014. In this capacity, Tracy Wilkison handled the training and coaching of newly recruited Assistant United States Attorneys, particularly on prosecution skills and trial techniques. Moreover, she was a member of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Section of the Narcotics Section, wherein she actively prosecuted large-scale drug trafficking cases. She remained in the position of Deputy Chief until she was again promoted in the Executive Management Team into being the Chief of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section of the National Security Division in 2015. In this position, she was responsible for managing and supervising the investigation and prosecution of high-tech crimes such as cyber-based attacks that are made against the nation’s electronic infrastructure. In addition, the department is in charge of prosecuting other criminal cases, including economic crimes and intellectual property crimes, such as economic espionage and theft of intellectual property. U.S. Attorney Wilkison served in the National Security Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California for over three years prior to becoming an Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California in January of 2017.
As the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison was responsible for supervising the Litigation Support Administrative Staff, as well as working on policy and strategy matters in collaboration with the Chief Federal Prosecutor and the First Assistant United States Attorney of the Office. She later became the First Assistant United States Attorney to the former U.S. Attorney Nicola T. Hanna.
Area of Practice
In her almost 22 years of service in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, U.S. Attorney Wilkison has prosecuted a wide variety of cases, including public corruption, firearms, financial fraud, and narcotics, among others. At one point in her career, she focused on the prosecution of federal cyber crimes that arose from computer hacking, cyber-stalking, identity theft, internet fraud, internet piracy, theft of trade secrets, and the sale of counterfeited trademarked goods.
Several Notable Prosecutions
Among the notable prosecutions that U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison was a part of was the prosecution of a high-profile cyber case, which was a case against a sextortionist who was responsible for victimizing hundreds of young women. The alleged criminal was referred to by the judge as a “sexual cyber-terrorist,” as there was extensive use of malware to initially gain access to the computers and gadgets of famous companies and celebrities. After illegally securing access to the widely known individuals and entities’ devices, the offender is said to have stolen extremely valuable trade secrets and distributed them to competitors. Another prosecution that U.S. Attorney Wilkison was involved in was the Apple litigation following the San Bernardino terrorist attack, which was a case that marked one of the highest-profile clashes regarding encryption and data privacy. Tracy Wilkison also once supervised the team responsible for investigating a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, which led to the leakage of intellectual property and details of personal employees online.
Office Jurisdiction
Being the incumbent United States Attorney for the Central District of California, U.S. Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison now oversees approximately 280 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and serves about 20 million people within the seven different counties of the Central District of California. As the Top Federal Law Enforcement Office of, by far, the largest federal district in the nation, U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison supervises all four of the litigating divisions of the Office, manages civil cases involving the United States, and recovers debts owed to the United States.
Contact Details
United States Attorney’s Office
Central District of California
312 North Spring Street
Suite 1200
Los Angeles, California 90012
(213) 894-2400
Main
(213) 894-0141
Fax
Civil Process Clerk
United States Attorney’s Office
Central District of California
300 North Los Angeles Street
Suite 7516
Los Angeles, California 90012
Social Media Profiles of Tracy Wilkinson
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Updated: January 15, 2021