Rollins takes the reins
Newly elevated US attorney to focus on violent crime, human trafficking
U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins’ main focuses as the state’s top federal law-enforcement officer will be on violent crime and trafficking of people, drugs and guns, she told reporters in her first interview in the big new job, though she played it coy on several politically charged issues.
“I want to be a better partner to our local and state law enforcement partners … to become more involved in human trafficking, drug trafficking, and those type of violent crimes that deeply impact communities,” she said, adding there’s a “unique opportunity” to seek “stricter sentences.”
Rollins had members of the media come in for a roundtable meeting on Thursday, her fourth day as the top federal prosecutor in the state. The now-former Suffolk County district attorney took questions and laid out her vision for the office in her new digs atop the Moakley federal courthouse in the Seaport.
She said the office will retain its focus on fraud and white-collar crimes, particularly in terms of health care, having successfully rooted out corruption there for years under her predecessors, including the most recent former U.S. attorney, Andrew Lelling. Rollins said her second-in-command, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Levy, will spearhead the continued health care fraud and malfeasance prosecution efforts.
On the subject of focusing on violent crime, Rollins spoke about tapping into the talent in the office as the top two criminal division prosecutors sat in the back of the room.
“We have the ability with the resources of the federal government to dig a lot deeper with (criminal division deputy) Amanda (Strachan) and (criminal division chief ) Bill (Abely) into those enormous cases where we
can put a really big team together who is used to this sort of either documentheavy or multi-jurisdictional investigations that are not days or weeks but possibly even months or years.”
She said human trafficking — for sex, labor or in the commission of other crimes including drugs — is happening “at significantly high rates in our commonwealth.”
“The federal government is uniquely suited to be involved,” Rollins said. “We can hold people for longer times, often, than the state can, and I am very clear that when it comes to violence,
serious crimes — that is where I want to be focusing my attention.”
What’s not coming with her is a no-prosecute list in the vein of the one she had as DA. In her 2018 campaign for district attorney, she made headlines with a rundown of minor crimes she’d tend toward not prosecuting.
“There’s no list as U.S. attorney — hard stop,” she said, noting she has to answer to higher-ups in the Department of Justice and that it’s normal for the federal prosecutors to pick and choose cases carefully in a way that a local DA can’t.
Asked whether she wants
a reputation as a particularly progressive U.S. attorney, Rollins referred back to the decision to skip prosecuting lesser crimes. “The progressive piece of it was so we could focus on violence, serious crimes,” she said.
Rollins kept her cards close to the chest when asked about several hot-button issues. Will she keep up the prosecution of Judge Shelley Joseph, who’s criminally charged with helping an illegal immigrant out the back door to avoid the feds?
“I have not been briefed on that,” Rollins said of the case that’s pending appeal in a higher court currently.
How about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber — if the courts send him back to be resentenced, will she seek death, as her predecessors did?
“The first thing we’ll do the second we get any finding is reach out to the families of the individuals that lost their lives in that domestic terror attack, and the hundreds of individuals that were maimed or harmed,” Rollins said, adding that her own — unstated — views on the death penalty in general are “not relevant.”
And safe-injection sites, where people can go to do
illegal drugs?
“We’ll be getting our guidance from Main Justice about that,” Rollins said, referring to the central higher echelons of the DOJ in Washington.
The U.S. Attorney’s office, which operated for nearly a year under Acting U.S. Attorney Nate Mendell since Lelling left, has kept chugging along. Most prosecutions aren’t going to change wildly under one US attorney as opposed to another, and Thursday wrapped up with the feds charging a Michigander with pandemic unemployment fraud as the office kept working.