‘Jeff Sessions’ priorities are my priorities,’ new U.S. attorney says

Three days after his swearing-in this week, Andrew Murray still needed directions Wednesday to get to a meeting in the labyrinthine U.S. Attorney’s offices on West Trade Street.

But the new top federal prosecutor for the Western District of North Carolina has no such directional problems when speaking about the priorities for him and his staff.

“I’m a military guy,” he recently told a social gathering of white-collar crime attorneys at an uptown law firm, according to an audience member. “I take my orders from my commanding officer.”

In this case, Murray’s CO is Attorney General Jeff Session, a former U.S. senator and federal prosecutor from Alabama credited with establishing new – and sometimes controversial – law-and-order objectives at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Murray, 55, the new U.S. Attorney for Charlotte-Mecklenburg and 31 other counties, ticked off several areas of emphasis: combating the increase in violent crime, gangs, undocumented immigrants who break the law or who return to the country after being deported, opioids and human trafficking.

“The priorities of Jeff Session and the Department of Justice are my priorities,” said Murray, who retired from the Coast Guard in 2016 after a 35-year career. “I understand I have leadership above me, and those priorities will be enforced regardless how I align with them. However, I align very well with those priorities, and I look forward to enforcing them.”

Those objectives, he says, track his record as a two-term Republican district attorney for Mecklenburg County. As DA, Murray positioned himself as a prosecutor who was tough on crime. But he also established programs to allow juvenile and first-time offenders to avoid trials and convictions, and he led his office through training on whether race and class were unduly influencing who got prosecuted and who did not.

Sessions, on the other hand, has instituted a new charging and sentencing policy that calls on his prosecutors to pursue the most serious criminal charges possible, which critics say could mean mostly minority defendants facing longer minimum sentences. The attorney general has also reversed Obama administration policies on voting rights and LGBTQ protections.

During a 20-minute interview, Murray said his values and priorities as a prosecutor have not changed. Murders and other violent crime, which have increased sharply in Charlotte and across the sprawling Western District in recent years, remain a top priority. And he has offered a job to longtime colleague Bill Stetzer, who now heads the district attorney’s homicide team.

As district attorney, Murray’s office prosecuted gangs, and he says his federal prosecutors will do likewise – this time with the added muscle of the FBI and other state and federal law enforcement groups, along with the far more powerful tool of the federal grand jury. He singled out MS-13, a multi-national Latino gang that has been targeted by federal authorities in Charlotte and which gets frequent mention in the tweets of President Donald Trump targeting those he says are soft on strengthening U.S. immigration laws.

Moreover, Murray has inherited one of the largest gang cases in the United States, a sweeping multi-state indictment of United Blood Nation that alleges racketeering, drug trafficking, murder and other violent crimes and which led to arrests across the Charlotte region and as far away as the New York prison system.

“Gangs should take heed. Gang activity will not be tolerated and they will be off the streets,” Murray said.

Other ongoing high-profile investigations now under Murray’s direction include probes of the Word of Faith Fellowship church in Spindale, along with Wells Fargo’s sales dealings with consumers and investors.

In the Wells Fargo investigation, federal prosecutors from Charlotte and San Francisco are handling the case. However, the financial industry is well represented in Trump’s cabinet and inner White House circle, and financial and white-collar crime does not generally appear in published lists of Sessions’ priorities. In fact, the administration has rolled back policies aimed at curtailing financial practices that fueled the worldwide recession in 2008.

Charlotte remains one of the country’s main financial centers, and Murray says he will follow both the law and the cases that are important to his constituents. He adds that he hopes to beef up his white-collar unit.

Before actively pursuing the appointment, Murray said he met with people who had first-hand knowledge of what the job entailed. One of them was presiding U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney, a former U.S. attorney in Raleigh. Another was Anne Tompkins, a Democrat and former law school classmate of Murray who served as U.S. attorney in Charlotte from 2010-15.

“I told him to balance the Attorney General’s national priorities with local priorities,” Tompkins said Wednesday. “I told him that his constituency was bigger and more diverse, and that his responsibilities to them were broader than what he had as district attorney. So, he should listen to the professionals in his new office and then go listen to the people of his district.”

“I told him that it is an amazing job with great possibilities and that he should make every minute count,” Tompkins added.

Murray says he’s eager to get started.

But first he had to find that meeting.

This story was originally published November 30, 2017 at 11:22 AM with the headline "‘Jeff Sessions’ priorities are my priorities,’ new U.S. attorney says."