Carole S. Rendon sworn in as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio

Carole S. Rendon was sworn in as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio this morning.

In that role, she is the chief federal law enforcement officer in Ohio’s northern 40 counties. The office is tasked with enforcing a wide range of criminal and civil statutes, including the prosecution of crimes including public corruption, civil rights, drug trafficking, fraud, human trafficking, firearms crimes and other violations.

“I am humbled by this honor,” Rendon said. “I look forward to continuing to work on our region’s most pressing challenges, including the opioid epidemic and police/community relations.”

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver delivered the oath to Rendon. A formal investiture ceremony will take place next month.

Rendon served from 2009 through 2016 as the First Assistant United States Attorney. In that role, she was responsible for the daily operation of the United States Attorney’s Office, including oversight of significant civil and criminal matters, litigation, strategic planning, community outreach, agency coordination, and office policies and procedures.

During that time, she was lead counsel on U.S. v. City of Cleveland, an exhaustive investigation of the Cleveland Division of Police which resulted in significant changes to areas including use of force, crisis intervention with the mentally ill, community engagement, bias-free policing, search and seizure, accountability, training, equipment and staffing. It is viewed as a national model for police reform.

She was also instrumental in developing the U.S. Attorney’s Task Force on Heroin and Opioids, which seeks to find comprehensive solutions to Northern Ohio’s heroin and opioid epidemic. She also was a driving force behind the Northeast Ohio Cyber Consortium, a cross-sector public-private partnership designed to reduce the region’s vulnerability to cyber attacks.

Rendon is a 1987 graduate of Northwestern University School of Law. She began her career as a law clerk to the Honorable Joel Flaum on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Carole then entered the Attorney General’s Honors Program in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice and was assigned to the Organized Crime Strike Force Unit in Boston, Massachusetts, which later was merged into the United States Attorney’s Office. 

In the Strike Force, she handled a series of investigations and prosecutions of corruption in the Boston Police Department and international Asian organized crime. In April 1994, Rendon became Chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, where she oversaw all of the major federal narcotics prosecutions.

In 1998, Rendon returned home to Cleveland and joined Messerman & Messerman. She later started the firm of Kushner & Rendon. In 2007, Carole seized the opportunity to join the women-owned litigation firm of Giffen & Kaminski. In each of those firms, Carole had both an active civil and criminal practice in federal and state court.