U.S. Department
of Justice
Division Heads
Chief of the Civil Division
David M. Harris
David Harris is the Chief of the Civil Division. Mr. Harris is a graduate of UCLA and USC Law School. He joined the Office in the Civil Fraud Section in 2008 after spending almost 20 years in private practice where, as an equity partner, he obtained extensive management experience and handled a wide variety of civil matters. As part of that practice, Mr. Harris tried 9 civil matters. He gained additional management experience as the Deputy Chief of the Civil Fraud Section, and as Civil Healthcare Fraud Coordinator where he served for 3 years. As Civil Healthcare Fraud Coordinator, Mr. Harris brought a real appreciation for the ways in which technology and data can improve our ability to work our cases. He has had tremendous success in his Civil Fraud cases, and during his tenure as Civil Fraud Deputy Chief and Civil Healthcare Fraud Coordinator, the Civil Fraud Section collectively recovered in excess of $300 million and has saved taxpayers millions of dollars more through proactive enforcement efforts.
Chief of the Criminal Division
Lindsey Greer Dotson
Ms. Dotson joined the Office in 2014. She previously served as Chief of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, where she was also Deputy Chief. During her career as a federal prosecutor, Ms. Dotson has prosecuted and supervised some of the Office’s most significant matters, including cases involving multimillion-dollar bribery schemes; international corruption and FCPA violations; sophisticated fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion; abuse and corruption by law enforcement; election crimes and campaign finance violations; foreign malign influence targeting public officials; and bias-motivated offenses, such as hate crimes. She led the corruption case against former Los Angeles County Supervisor and City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, ultimately securing convictions at trial for conspiracy, bribery, and honest services fraud. She successfully tried one of the nation’s first post-McDonnell bribery and extortion cases against an aide to a U.S. Congressmember and led one of the Office’s most complex wiretap investigations in a corruption case, resulting in convictions against high-level public officials and a real estate developer across multiple related cases. Following a multimillion-dollar heist of a business staged to look like a legitimate search warrant operation, Ms. Dotson prosecuted a deputy sheriff, his fake law enforcement team, and a former company executive for orchestrating the robbery. Additionally, she tried and successfully defended on appeal the convictions of deputy sheriffs in a civil rights and obstruction case stemming from the investigation of then-LASD Sheriff Lee Baca. She also secured convictions and one of the lengthiest sentences in Department of Justice history for a law enforcement officer—over 17 years for a deputy sheriff caught in an undercover operation using his badge to facilitate millions in narcotics shipments and extort the enemies of his criminal clientele. Prior to joining the Office, Ms. Dotson was an associate at an international law firm and clerked for the Honorable Jacqueline H. Nguyen in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. She graduated from New York University School of Law as a Robert McKay Scholar and received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Southern California.
Chief of the National Security Division
David Ryan
David Ryan joined the Office in 2016. He was previously Chief of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section, and Chief and Deputy Chief of the General Crimes Section. As an AUSA, Mr. Ryan has handled numerous significant prosecutions, including against the leaders of a drug trafficking organization who distributed fentanyl throughout the United States, arms traffickers who illegally exported weapons systems to Russia, Asia, and the Middle East, and a Defense Department official who accepted illegal cash payments to steer government funds to a private contractor. In 2022, Mr. Ryan and his co-counsel won the Director’s Award and the Anti-Defamation League’s Sherwood Prize for Combatting Hate for their prosecution of an ISIS supporter who was convicted at trial of attempting to detonate weapons of mass destruction at a political rally in Long Beach, California. In 2021 Mr. Ryan and his co-counsel won the Director’s Award for their prosecution of a defendant who was convicted at trial of murdering his autistic children and attempting to murder his ex-wife for insurance money. Mr. Ryan has also received the Federal Bar Association’s Younger Federal Lawyer award in recognition of his contributions to the work of the Office. In the Office, Mr. Ryan has been co-chair of the National Security Division’s EAGLE Task Force, and a member of the Hiring Committee. Mr. Ryan also serves as an Adjunct Professor at USC Gould School of Law, where he teaches on Counterterrorism, Privacy, and Civil Liberties. Mr. Ryan received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his undergraduate degree from Stanford University.