Seitzinger, Mark P.

Karen Hewitt is a former United States Attorney and an experienced federal trial lawyer who has successfully litigated hundreds of cases in federal court over two decades. Before joining Jones Day in 2010, Karen had a distinguished legal career with the Justice Department, culminating in her appointment in 2007 as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California. As San Diego's chief federal law enforcement officer, she led the federal effort to protect the safety and security of the three million people residing in the region, while addressing the many issues associated with the international border in California. Karen focused on national security, cyber and intellectual property crime, white-collar and financial crime, civil fraud, violent crime, narcotics, and immigration enforcement. During Karen's tenure, the U.S. Attorney's Office also investigated and prosecuted violations of the securities laws, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and bankruptcy fraud.

Under Karen's direction, the U.S. Attorney's Office became one of the most productive in the nation and achieved convictions against defendants in many significant cases, including: numerous high-ranking members of a deadly Mexican drug cartel for narcotics trafficking, a defense contractor for bribing a congressman, the executive director of the CIA for fraud, a man who made an internet threat to kill a presidential candidate, a man for murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, a Chinese resident for conspiring to steal U.S. military encryption technology, three individuals who bombed the federal courthouse, a SPAWAR employee for accepting bribes, and a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for possession of child pornography.

Karen was active in Justice Department policy initiatives and served on three subcommittees of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, she handled complex, multimillion dollar civil investigations brought under the federal False Claims Act for defense procurement and health care fraud.