Korean American named U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General

September 15, 2014
Suh Sung-hee

Suh Sung-hee

Korean-American Suh Sung-hee has been appointed to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Justice Department.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division announced last week that Suh has been appointed to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General overseeing the Appellate, Capital Case and Fraud Sections.

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.”

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 Women of Power and Influence Award from the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women in 2011, and in 2012, she was recognized in Benchmark Litigation’s inaugural edition of the Top 250 Women in Litigation.