U.S. Attorney’s Office Welcomes 15 New Assistant U.S. Attorneys

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – On Friday, January 25, 2019, the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, Chief U.S. District Judge, formally administered the oath of office to 15 new Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) for the Eastern District of Tennessee.  U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey introduced the new AUSAs with a short background before moving the court to administer the oath of office to each of them. The new AUSAs will serve in the Knoxville headquarters office as well as the Chattanooga and Greeneville branch offices and include the following:

AUSA Casey Arrowood joined the Knoxville office where he will handle general crimes and national security matters. Prior to coming to the Eastern District of Tennessee, he served as an AUSA in the Western District of North Carolina and a trial attorney in the National Security Division at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC.  He also previously served as a law clerk in the Eastern District of New York and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.  Before attending law school, he was an artillery officer in the U.S. Army, serving tours in Kosovo and Afghanistan.  Arrowood received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. 

AUSA Kevin Brown joined the Chattanooga office as a Special AUSA working in the Violent Crimes Unit to prosecute firearms, drug and gang related offenses.  He comes to the U.S. Attorney’s Office via the Chattanooga Police Department, where he serves as a Special Assistant City Attorney.   Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Brown was an Assistant District Attorney in the 11th Judicial District of Tennessee, where he prosecuted violent crimes and served as Criminal Court Division Supervisor.

AUSA Frank Clark joined the Chattanooga office to prosecute violent crimes and narcotics offenses.  He was a prosecutor for 13 years, first in his home state of Mississippi, and then in Gwinnett County, Georgia. He has a law degree from Ole Miss and an undergraduate degree from Mississippi College.  Just prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Clark worked at a law firm practicing civil defense litigation. 

AUSA Joe DeGaetano joined the Chattanooga office where he will handle violent crime and narcotics prosecutions.   He has an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and a law degree from the University of Georgia.  After clerking for a judge on the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, he worked for a large law firm in Nashville and Chattanooga.  He then joined a small firm in Chattanooga and finally was a solo practitioner for around 10 years.  Most recently, he was a personal injury lawyer for 17 years and additionally defended federal criminal defendants through the CJA Panel. 

AUSA Margaret Harker joined the ACE team in the civil division of the Knoxville office.  She transferred from the Eastern District of Virginia where she practiced defensive litigation as a civil AUSA.  Prior to becoming an AUSA, she served as a law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Virginia Court of Appeals.  She also interned for the Fourth Circuit Court in Virginia and Virginia Supreme Court.  Margaret received her law degree from the University of Richmond, School of Law and her undergraduate degree in political science, Asian studies, and studio art, from Santa Clara University.  She also studied at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China.  

AUSA TJ Harker joined the Greeneville office to prosecute white-collar crime, with a focus on complex health care fraud.  Prior to coming to the Greeneville office, he service five years as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of New Jersey, Division of Criminal Justice, where he led New Jersey’s Commercial Bribery Task Force.  Before that, he was in private practice in New York.  He received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

AUSA Brent Jones joined the Knoxville office to prosecute drug cases as part of the Department of Justice’s Operation Synthetic Opioid Surge.  A native of Tennessee, Jones received his undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and his law degree from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.  He joined the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps, where he served in various positions for over 11 years, and remains in the Air Force in a reserve capacity, stationed out of Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. 

AUSA Alan Kirk joined the Knoxville office to concentrate on violent crime and narcotics prosecutions.  A native of Birmingham, Alabama, he received an undergraduate degree from Auburn University and law degree from the Cumberland School of Law.  Kirk joined the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corp and was most recently stationed at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. 

AUSA Todd Martin joined the Greeneville office to prosecute violent crime offenders.  He graduated from New River Community College and East Tennessee State University before attending law school at the University of Memphis.  He also completed his Master of Laws at Boston University.  Prior to becoming an attorney, he served as a deputy sheriff and medic for the Bristol, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office, a patrol officer with the Bristol, Tennessee, Police Department, and a reserve deputy sheriff with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.  After this, Martin was appointed as an Assistant District Attorney for the Second Judicial District of Tennessee.  During that time, he joined the U.S. Army Reserves as a Judge Advocate.  Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he served as a Firearms, Explosives and Arson Attorney with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for 12 years.

AUSA Tom McCauley currently serves as a Special AUSA in the Greeneville office, responsible for violent crime cases in Johnson City.  He is a graduate of the Duncan School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee. Prior to becoming a Special AUSA, McCauley was an Assistant Public Defender in the Fourth Judicial District.  His experience before and during law school includes serving as a patrol officer, detective, DEA Task Force Agent, narcotics investigator, SWAT sniper, and firearms instructor.  He has also served as a POST certified instructor at the Regional Law Enforcement Academy in Greeneville, Tennessee, and the Advanced Undercover Operative Coarse at the Regional Counterdrug Training Academy in Meridian, Mississippi.

AUSA Gretchen Mohr joined the Monetary Recovery Unit in the Knoxville office to work on asset forfeiture and financial matters.  She graduated from Middle Tennessee State University and received a law degree from New York Law School in New York City.  After law school, she served as a law clerk for the New York Supreme Court.  Most recently, she spent five years prosecuting street and violent crime for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. 

AUSA Andrew Parker joined the Greeneville office to prosecute violent crime offenses.  Parker is from the Tampa Bay area of Florida, where he was a state prosecutor for six years.  He is a graduate of the College of Charleston and Florida Coastal School of Law. 

AUSA Kevin Quencer joined the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Unit in the Knoxville office.  He earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and his law degree from Washington and Lee.  After law school, Kevin served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps for five years, on active duty, as a trial attorney and appellate law clerk.  Remaining a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves, he resigned his active duty commission to join the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in his native Miami, Florida.  There he focused on prosecuting international drug traffickers in South America and the Caribbean as well as members of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, the FARC, operating in the jungles of Colombia. 

AUSA Joe Rodriguez joined the Affirmative Civil Enforcement Unit in the Knoxville office. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas.  He attended law school at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he served on the law journal, moot court board, and was treasurer of the Latino Law Student Association.  After graduating from law school, he worked as a civil litigation associate with a law firm in Columbus, Ohio, before becoming an AUSA in the Western District of Texas in San Antonio.  In addition to maintaining a caseload of mostly civil defensive litigation, he served as a Deputy Civil Chief for the Western District of Texas, supervising all defensive litigation in San Antonio, Austin, and elsewhere throughout the district. 

AUSA Brian Samuelson joined the Appellate Unit in the Knoxville office.  He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin and his law degree from Harvard Law School.  After law school, he clerked for the Alaska Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  He most recently was with a law firm in Portland, Oregon. 

“It is with pride and pleasure that I welcome each of these individuals as part of the team of experienced and dedicated attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee,” said U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey. 

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