United States Attorney Talbert Announces His Resignation

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert has announced his resignation effective midnight on Jan. 11, 2025. Talbert has served as the Presidentially appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California for two and a half years.

"It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California, the district where I served as a federal prosecutor for two decades," said Talbert. "I thank President Biden for nominating me to the position and am grateful to the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Alex Padilla, and Attorney General Merrick Garland for their support and confidence in me to lead this office of dedicated public servants. It has been a privilege to work alongside the talented attorneys and staff of this office as well as with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to protect the over 8 million residents who live in our district, to seek justice on behalf of victims, to safeguard civil rights, and to uphold the rule of law. After my departure, I am confident the office will continue to perform at a high level of excellence and will continue to demonstrate its commitment to pursuing justice in a fair, ethical, and nonpartisan manner, with a clear understanding of the need to maintain the public's confidence and trust."

The United States Attorney serves as the chief federal law enforcement officer and is responsible for prosecuting federal criminal cases and representing the United States in civil litigation. The Eastern District covers 34 counties throughout the Central Valley and the Sierras and has almost 100 attorneys and almost 100 non-attorney staff with offices in Sacramento, Fresno, and Bakersfield.

Upon Mr. Talbert's resignation, Michele M. Beckwith will become the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California pursuant to the Vacancies Reform Act. Ms. Beckwith is a veteran federal prosecutor who served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney to Mr. Talbert and earlier as Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney and Criminal Chief.

U.S. Attorney Talbert has served the Department of Justice for more than 31 years, and over the last 14 years he has made a lasting mark on the Eastern District of California through his steady, team-oriented, and innovative leadership. He first assumed the role of First Assistant U.S. Attorney in the office in 2011, and later led the office for almost two years in 2016-2017 as the Acting and Interim U.S. Attorney. He returned to the First Assistant U.S. Attorney position in 2017, and then again led the office as the Acting and Interim U.S. Attorney in 2021-2022 before being confirmed as the Presidentially appointed U.S. Attorney in June 2022. His stalwart leadership throughout changes in Administrations and within the U.S. Attorney's Office embodies the office's commitment to excellence and its enforcement of federal law without bias and unaffected by partisanship.

At the national level, Mr. Talbert also served the U.S. Department of Justice through multiple subcommittees and working groups, including the Civil Rights Subcommittee and its Hate Crimes Working Group, the Controlled Substances Subcommittee and its Prevention Working Group, the Office of Management and Budget Subcommittee, and the Resource Allocation Working Group.

Previously, Mr. Talbert served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in this district, first in the Narcotics and Violent Crime Unit in Sacramento where he prosecuted drug trafficking cases and then as the Chief of Appeals and Training in which he supervised the office's appellate practice and trained incoming Criminal Division Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Mr. Talbert also taught professional responsibility for four years as an adjunct professor at the U.C. Davis School of Law.

Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Talbert worked as a Trial Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. after being hired in the Attorney General's Honors Program; as an attorney at the law firm of Stoel Rives LLP in Seattle, Washington, in the firm's Litigation Department and White Collar Defense Practice Group; and as an Assistant Counsel and Associate Counsel at the Office of Professional Responsibility of the U.S. Department of Justice where he investigated claims of prosecutorial misconduct and other allegations made against Department of Justice attorneys. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable David R. Thompson (deceased), Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Talbert received his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude in Economics, from Harvard University; his Master of Economics from the University of Sydney, Australia, which he attended on a Rotary Foundation Scholarship; and his Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law where he was the Chief Articles Editor for the UCLA Law Review.

Notable criminal cases the office has handled under U.S. Attorney Talbert's leadership include:

• Criminal prosecutions of major frauds, including cases against the two co-founders and co-CEOs of Bitwise Industries, who received 11-year and 9-year sentences for a $115 million fraud centered on a failed Fresno-based tech startup; a former congressman charged with fraud in conducting his private business dealings; the owner of a chain of supermarkets who allegedly employed undocumented workers then used their immigration status to avoid paying for overtime; and a former local water district manager convicted of a long-running scheme to divert and sell managed water.
• Investigations and cases undertaken in concert with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to reduce violent crime, including prosecution of MS-13 and Aryan Brotherhood defendants who committed and directed murders, other violent crimes, and drug trafficking crimes, and the prosecution of illegal firearms trafficking schemes, including a ring alleged to have illegally brought over 500 guns from Georgia to the Eastern District of California and another unrelated scheme that allegedly resulted in the sale of over 100 guns used in crimes across California and neighboring states.
• Cases targeting individuals who prey upon and sexually exploit children, including multiple defendants who extorted minors online for child sexual abuse material, multiple defendants who used hidden recording devices to surreptitiously film children in various stages of undress, and a defendant sentenced to 30 years for the sex trafficking of a minor.
• The indictment of two individuals, leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, for allegedly soliciting over Telegram the murder of federal officials and mass hate crimes as well as other federal crimes.
• The investigation and indictment of individuals operating major drug trafficking organizations in and through the district, including one case that led to seizures of 12,900 pounds of methamphetamine, 23 kilograms of fentanyl, and 35 firearms, and another case involving counterfeit pills containing fentanyl trafficked by a defendant who called himself the "M30 king of Fresno."
• Cases targeting individuals who defrauded the state and federal government out of millions of dollars of pandemic relief funds intended for people and companies legitimately needing the assistance, including a former gang member serving a life sentence for murder in state prison who allegedly attempted a $550 million COVID relief tax credit fraud scheme while he was simultaneously directing a methamphetamine trafficking organization operating outside of prison walls.
• Cases protecting the environment, including the indictment of a group of defendants who allegedly conspired to create, distribute, and use a sophisticated software system to obtain passing smog check tests for vehicles that would otherwise fail, in violation of the Clean Air Act, and cases against others who distributed defeat devices that unlawfully interfered with the emissions control systems in trucks.
• The indictment of eleven "burglary tourists" alleged to have used blowtorches and cellphone jammers to commit a string of bank robberies in multiple states.
• Criminal prosecutions of law enforcement officers violating victims' civil rights while acting under color of law, including a state prison guard who assaulted two inmates, resulting in one's death, and later with fellow officers engaged in an attempted coverup, and a police officer alleged to have abused his official position to sexually assault women.
• Cases against perpetrators of violent crimes, including sexual assaults, in Yosemite National Park.
• Prosecution and conviction of 20 individuals in a series of cases involving corruption at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Notable civil cases the office has handled under U.S. Attorney Talbert's leadership include:

• Multiple cases of health care fraud, including the following: Health Net Federal Services paid more than $97 million for overstated billings to the Veteran's Administration; Nor-Cal Pharmacies Inc. was shut down and ordered to pay $1 million for dispensing oxycodone and hydrocodone based on invalid prescriptions; Oroville Hospital is to pay $10.25 million for paying kickbacks to physicians in order to increase hospital admissions and admitting patients for whom they knew inpatient care was not medically necessary; and Dr. Francis Lagattuta and his clinic agreed to pay $11.4 million for billing for allegedly medically unnecessary skin biopsies, spinal cord stimulation surgeries, and urine drug testing.
• Recoveries for damage to federal lands based on negligently caused forest fires, including a $117 million payment by PG&E relating to the 2018 Camp Fire.
• Multiple civil settlements for fraud in COVID relief programs.
• A case resulting in a $3.1 million settlement for the manufacture and sale of illegal devices to circumvent emission control systems of diesel trucks.
• The opening of a civil rights investigation with the Civil Rights Division into allegations of sexual abuse of inmates by staff at California's largest women's prison.

Throughout his time in the office, Mr. Talbert participated in and supported the development of the office's community outreach program, especially in the area of interfaith outreach, working to build strong community bonds among various groups and between those groups and law enforcement. He launched the Fresno Area Hate Crimes Task Force, modeled on the successful Sacramento Area Hate Crimes Task Force which he also led, and he worked to increase the public's awareness of the threat and impact of hate crimes, the importance of reporting them to law enforcement, and the need for different parts of the community and law enforcement to stand up to acts of hate together. Within the federal court family, he ensured that the U.S. Attorney's Office took a leadership role through its innovative Special Emphasis Program to raise awareness of issues impacting all parts of the community and to further develop leadership opportunities for women lawyers. He also helped create the Sacramento Region Diversity Career Fair, the first legal career fair in the area connecting diverse law students and newer lawyers with prospective employers, and he helped establish the fair as an annual event for three years running.

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