Korean-American named US deputy assistant attorney general

Suh Sung-hee

By Park Si-soo

Korean-American Suh Sung-hee has been appointed deputy assistant attorney general at the U.S. Justice Department.

She will be tasked to oversee appellate, capital cases and the fraud division, the ministry said in a statement.

Suh previously worked for 15 years at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, a New York-based law firm, as a litigation partner. There she focused on financial institutions, securities enforcement, white-collar defense and compliance.

Her work at the firm also included pursuing corruption in the public sector, healthcare fraud and securities fraud.

“She’s been my go-to person for many years,” Betty Santangelo, a close aide, was quoted as saying in a news report. “This department is very lucky to have her.”

Leslie Caldwell, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division at the Justice Department, referred to Suh as “an exceptional attorney with a depth of experience across the spectrum of the department’s practice areas.”

Before her stint at Schulte Roth, Suh served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York from 1994 to 1999, prosecuting murder, money laundering and other crimes.

She prosecuted the acting boss of the Gambino crime ring and more than 60 other members of organized crime families, according to the department. And she secured guilty verdicts against a former managing director of a securities firm, an attorney and an accountant following a Ponzi scheme, it said.

Suh, who graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, received the Director’s Award for Superior Performance from the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and was honored with the Women of Power and Influence Award from the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women.