US Attorney Jacqueline Romero Steps Down
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Jacqueline Romero, the US Attorney For the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is stepping down from her post effective immediately. The US Attorney is an appointed position and is appointed by the President and Attorney General. She served in that position since June 2022.
Prior to this position, Romero was a prosecutor in the US Attorneys office for 16 years prior to her appointment. Nelson S.T. Thayer, Jr., the District’s First Assistant United States Attorney, is now Acting U.S. Attorney upon Ms. Romero’s departure from the Office. Mr. Thayer is a career prosecutor with over three decades of experience in the Department of Justice.
Romero secured convictions against violent offenders such as her work with the Philadelphia Carjacking Task Force, which charged dozens of carjackers federally, resulting in substantialprisonsentences. USAO-EDPA, following an investigation by HSI and the Reading Police Department, secured lifeimprisonment for the leaders of a violent drug and sex trafficking gang known as the Sevens, putting a permanent end to their reign of terror in the city.
EDPA prosecutors secured the conviction at trial of Rafael Vega-Rodriguez for the attempted murder of three FBI agents, resulting in a 45-year prison sentence.
She also dealt with white collar crime such as the convictions at trial of former Local 98 business manager John Dougherty and former Local 98 president Brian Burrows for embezzling union funds and related charges. Dougherty was sentenced to six years in prison for these offenses and public corruption crimes for which he was convicted at an earlier trial; Burrows was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.
The conviction at trial of Joseph Cammarata for stealing more than $40 million in a years-long securities fraud scheme carried out with two codefendants. Cammarata, a securities claims aggregator, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was subsequently convicted at a separate trial of tax evasion related to the securities scheme and sentenced to a partially concurrent term of 72 months in prison.
She also took part in a re entry program to show people just how hard it can be to stay straight coming out of prison.