U.S. attorney seeing new twists on old problems

As McGregor Scott lays the groundwork for a second tour as U.S. attorney for California’s Eastern District, he finds himself grappling with new twists on old problems.

Recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as President Donald J. Trump’s first U.S. attorney in California, Scott has identified five major priorities for his district: violent crime, opioids, marijuana, cybercrime and human trafficking. Scott previously served as U.S. attorney for the district between 2003 and 2009.

Scott has a remarkable degree of independence in setting his agenda, which he credited to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to decentralize operations in district offices.

“He was here last week and really made a point of saying that [he’s] going to let the U.S. attorneys figure out what’s best in his or her district,” Scott said. “And I welcome that, because one size definitely does not fit all.”

This is especially true in the Eastern District, where criminal trends Scott was intimately familiar with a decade ago have become almost unrecognizable. As an example, he cited increased gang activity across California’s Central Valley. According to Scott, this surge in violent crimes was partly caused by recent state legislative efforts that “diluted” criminal laws.

Scott cited PC 29800, more commonly known as the “felon with a firearm” law. The statute prohibits anyone convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors from owning or acquiring guns.

But Scott said that since his appointment last November, local prosecutors have complained to him that the courts aren’t sentencing people for this offense, which means felons are becoming bolder about carrying weapons.

“One of the district attorneys called me to seek help and he said, these are his words, ‘Nobody goes to prison for being a felon with a gun anymore, so everybody’s got a gun,’” Scott recounted.

Another factor behind the flood of illegal firearms in California is the proliferation of so-called ghost guns — firearms that can be assembled at home using piecemeal materials purchased online. Owners of ghost guns are prohibited from selling or even transferring them through inheritance.

But the lack of serial numbers makes them especially difficult to track, which means someone can legally acquire an AR-15 receiver and quickly turn it into a fully functional semi-automatic weapon ready for sale on the black market.

“Obviously, we had these kinds of crimes when I was U.S. attorney last time, but I don’t have memory of the sheer volume of cases we’re doing in this field today,” Scott said. “The state just seems to be awash in guns.”

Assistant U.S. attorneys in Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Sacramento, Stockton and the Fairfield-Vallejo-Vacaville region are working in tandem with DAs to create a formal system for dealing with felons with guns cases, which Scott hopes will reduce the number of illegal firearms.

Scott’s office is also working closely with local law enforcement to crack down on human trafficking, which he said has grown more systematic and widespread since he was last in office.

“What we’re now seeing is much more structured and organized,” Scott said. He noted that his office recently took down members of the Bull Dog gang in Fresno, which has been trafficking girls and women to cities all across the U.S.

“The new angle is we go after street gangs for things like guns and selling drugs, and we wrap in the human trafficking component,” Scott said. “If we can’t get them for selling dope, we’ll get them for selling girls.”

Solutions are less clear-cut for another significant issue in Scott’s district: The opioid epidemic. Scott and several members of his office traveled to the northern part of the district recently to talk with local law enforcement and health officials about the flood of prescription drugs.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, the number of drug poisoning-related deaths in California rose 50 percent between 2002 and 2014, with the hardest hit counties concentrated in the northern part of the state.

“I was in Redding a couple weeks ago, and the DA up there said tar heroin has replaced methamphetamine as the drug of choice,” Scott said.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” said Scott, who served for years as a DA in Shasta County. He remembered the meth crisis in Northern California, and was stunned that opioids and black tar heroin had become an even deadlier problem in less than two decades.

An opioid coordinator was recently appointed in Scott’s office. But he emphasized that a local and national strategy remains in development.

Scott was similarly amazed by the boom in marijuana grows across the Eastern District.

“What we have seen over these years is a massive proliferation of large-scale marijuana grows almost exclusively funded and organized by the Mexican drug cartels,” Scott said.

Illegal pot farms in the Sequoia National Forest and other federal wilderness land have contributed to environmental damage that Scott characterized as “downright scary,” including stream diversion and clear-cutting. Some growers have been protecting their plants with a rodenticide outlawed in the U.S. 40 years ago, which poses an enormous threat to native wildlife, Scott said.

Marijuana recently became legal in California, which has left legal growers and distributors uncertain of how they’ll be treated by federal law enforcement agencies. Scott sidestepped this issue by suggesting the vast majority of marijuana grown in California is done by unlicensed cultivators, many of whom also engage in illegal interstate trafficking.

“My strong advice to local officials is that they take this issue very seriously, because it undermines any legitimacy they may claim for this legal system in California and would only invite federal intervention,” Scott said.

Scott’s last major priority — illegal activity on the so-called dark web — is part of a vision he has for the office’s broader role in the Department of Justice system.

“Different offices around the country have become known for different expertise,” Scott said. “We want to grow Sacramento’s reputation around the dark web.”

The Eastern District office played a prominent role last year in dismantling Alpha Bay — an online market for weapons and drugs that generated hundreds of millions of dollars. Scott expressed hope the Alpha Bay operation would help establish Sacramento as a linchpin for the investigation and prosecution of online crimes.

To further this goal, Scott hopes to add a dedicated cyber crime team to the office, although he stressed this is in the discussion stage.

In advancing all of his priorities, Scott said he’d like to change the traditionally arm’s length relationship that has defined relations between federal, state and local agencies in Sacramento.

“It’s a historical thing I don’t really understand,” Scott said. To crack this institutional problem, Scott held a massive meeting several weeks ago with the heads of law enforcement offices to discuss a collaborative approach for fighting violent crime in Sacramento County.

“I think that’s a very real world example of what we’re talking about,” Scott said. “The executives in the room commit to saying, ‘We’re all going to work together to do this,’ and that makes it happen.”