Ashley Chapman Hoff is Sworn In as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas

Ashley Chapman Hoff is officially the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas. On January 26, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas appointed Hoff as U.S. Attorney effective yesterday.  Pursuant to the appointment order, Hoff will serve as U.S. Attorney until a successor is appointed and sworn into office. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman administered the oath of office to Hoff at the federal courthouse in Austin. 

“It is truly the honor of a lifetime to serve as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, and I am grateful to the Court for the appointment. I acknowledge and embrace the immense responsibility of this position,” said U.S. Attorney Hoff.   “I am privileged to work alongside the incredibly talented and dedicated women and men of this office, who give their all every day to protect the public, defend the Constitution, and represent the United States of America.” 

As U.S. Attorney, Hoff is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the Western District of Texas.  She is responsible for prosecuting violations of federal law and representing the federal government in civil litigation where the United States is a party.  The Western District of Texas includes 68 counties spanning about 93,000 square miles. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas employs more than 300 people and has staffed offices in Austin, Alpine, Del Rio, El Paso, Midland, Waco, and San Antonio. 

Hoff has spent 26 years as a public servant and prosecutor, handling criminal cases in both state and federal court. She has been with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas for more than 17 years. Since 2018, she has served as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney.  In that role, she was responsible for the supervision of over 150 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and all aspects of the district’s criminal and civil practice. Prior to being First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Hoff was the Chief of the Austin Division from 2012 to 2018. Before becoming part of the District’s leadership, Hoff served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Austin Division for more than eight years, where she prosecuted a wide variety of federal offenses, including violent crime, drug trafficking, firearms violations, identity theft, health care fraud, and complex white collar crimes, among others.

Before arriving in the Western District of Texas, Hoff was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Texas, where she was responsible for handling national security investigations as part of a counterterrorism unit created after the events of September 11, 2001. She began her federal prosecution experience in 2000 in the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Texas EXILE violent crime reduction initiative in which she prosecuted federal firearm offenses as one of eight specially-designated prosecutors in the State of Texas. Texas EXILE was one of the models for the federal Project Safe Neighborhoods program, which remains an important federal violent crime reduction initiative nationwide.

Hoff began her legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston, where she served as a state trial prosecutor from 1995-2000, handling misdemeanor, juvenile, and felony matters.

Hoff, a native Texan who was born and raised in Sherman, graduated from Texas Christian University in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree, majoring in Secondary Education with an emphasis in Government and Spanish. She received her law degree from Baylor University in 1994.

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