United States Attorney for the Central District of Illinois Gregory K. Harris announced today that he has submitted his resignation to President Joseph R. Biden, to be effective mid-day on January 2, 2025. Harris, a longtime federal prosecutor who has litigated both criminal and civil matters for the government, plans to retire on the same day.
Harris thanked Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin for their support in recommending him as a nominee to President Biden. Harris was nominated in October 2021, confirmed by the United States Senate in December 2021, and sworn in by the federal judiciary that same month. He is the first Black individual to serve as U.S. Attorney in the District.
In February of 2022, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Harris to the Attorney General’s Advisory Commission, where Harris was one of 13 U.S. Attorneys to represent the nationwide community of 93 U.S. Attorneys.
“Serving as United States Attorney after more than thirty years with the office has been the honor of a lifetime,” said Harris. “Words cannot express my gratitude to the public servants in law enforcement who have dedicated their careers to protecting our community and to the prosecutors and staff in my office who work tirelessly every day in pursuit of justice.”
During Harris’s tenure, the U.S. Attorney’s Office successfully prosecuted defendants in a wide range of cases involving, gun violence, financial fraud, drug trafficking, civil rights violations, and public corruption, among others. Those cases included the prosecutions of Illinois correctional officers for conspiracy to deprive civil rights and civil rights deprivations resulting in the death of Larry Earvin, an inmate at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling, Illinois. The Office also prosecuted former Illinois State Senator and gubernatorial candidate Sam McCann for fraudulent use of campaign funds, money laundering, and tax evasion. And the Office prosecuted a California man for wire fraud, mail fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering in connection with an investment fraud scheme that netted more than $22,000,000 from victims across the country, including more than fifty residing in the Central District of Illinois.
Harris, who received the Department of Justice’s prestigious Director’s Award in 2018 for his assistance in creating the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force, also focused on that issue during his time as U.S. Attorney. Under his leadership, the Office successfully prosecuted several defendants for kidnapping, forced labor, and conspiracy to commit forced labor in a case where multiple victims – including two children – were compelled to work as domestic servants, hotel maids, and factory laborers and were subjected to physical and sexual abuse. One of those defendants received the first sentence of life imprisonment that had been imposed in over a decade in a forced labor case under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Additional cases that were prosecuted during Harris’s tenure and are pending sentencing include the conviction of a Danville, Illinois, man for carjacking and murder, among other crimes; the weeks-long trial and convictions of two Quad Cities, Illinois, men for a violent string of armed robberies in that area that involved shootings, pistol whippings, and assaults; and the conviction of two Decatur, Illinois, siblings for the kidnapping of a local businessman.
The Office is also presently prosecuting cases against a Springfield man and others allegedly involving area prostitution businesses fronting as massage parlors.
Under Harris’s leadership, the Office recovered millions of taxpayer dollars through civil fraud actions, including a $12.5 million settlement with a Southern Illinois hospital that had overbilled federal healthcare programs. The Office also obtained restitution on behalf of crime victims, achieved access to public accommodations on behalf of disabled individuals, and recovered taxpayer dollars fraudulently obtained from pandemic-era programs.
“Every day individuals in our Office go to work to make the Central District of Illinois safer,” Harris said. “Members of our community deserve to live in a place where they are not subject to gun violence, where they are free from the far-reaching tentacles of financial fraudsters, where purveyors of opiates and other addictive substances are unable to prey on society’s most vulnerable, and where children are protected from the trauma of sexual abuse and exploitation. During my time as the U.S. Attorney, we prosecuted a number of cases in pursuit of these aims. It is my hope that these prosecutions have had direct, positive effects on the community.”
During his investiture, Harris also had stated that his goal was to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office with compassion, firmness, strength, and community support. “Looking back on my time with the Office, I believe we achieved that goal,” Harris said.
Prior to his nomination as U.S. Attorney, Harris served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office for more than thirty years. He held various leadership positions, including Chief of the Criminal Division. He also handled over thirty-five jury trials and several other bench trials involving offenses such as guns, drugs, counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, fraud, child exploitation, political corruption, extortion, and racketeering. Harris won convictions in all but one of his trials.
Harris received his juris doctorate degree from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law (formerly known as The John Marshall Law School) in 1976 and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, with a minor in Economics, from Howard University in 1971.
After law school, Harris moved to Springfield, Illinois, in 1976, where he worked for the Illinois Office of the State Appellate Defender as an Assistant Deputy Defender representing indigent defendants on appeal.
In 1979, Harris left the State Appellate Defender’s Office and was chosen as Legal Counsel for the Governor’s Office of Manpower and Human Development in Springfield, which later became the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Development. In 1980, Harris opened his own law firm. Harris was a solo practitioner until June of 1980.
In June of 1980, Harris was appointed as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Springfield, where he worked for approximately eight years as a federal prosecutor in the criminal division.
In 1988, Harris left the U.S. Attorney’s Office and entered private practice at the law firm Giffin, Winning, Cohen and Bodewes as an associate. Four years later, Harris became an equity partner in the firm, making him the first Black individual to become a partner at a major Springfield law firm. Harris specialized in employment litigation and criminal defense work.
Harris left the law firm in 2001 to return to the U.S. Attorney’s Office where he served in the Civil Division as its health care fraud attorney representing the government against hospitals, nursing homes, and physicians charged with defrauding the United States. Shortly thereafter, Harris was promoted to the dual positions of Chief of the Criminal Division and Supervisor of the Springfield headquarters office. As the Chief of the Criminal Division, Harris supervised all of the criminal prosecutions within the district.
Harris is married to Hirut Fisseha and has two daughters, Maya and Leah Harris, and a son, Fanuel Harris, who passed away in 2022.
The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Illinois serves as the chief law enforcement officer for the 46 counties across the mid-section of the state. The district’s headquarters office is in Springfield with district offices in Peoria, Moline, and Urbana, Illinois. The office is responsible for conducting federal criminal prosecutions and protecting the interests of the United States by pursuing and defending against claims in civil litigation.