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Ihlenfeld reflects on encore as U.S. Attorney

Photo provided William Ihlenfeld, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia, appears at a 2023 press conference to announce the indictment of the Rico McGhee organization, which halted a top source of illicit drugs in the Ohio Valley.

WHEELING — From dismantling drug trafficking organizations to cracking down on COVID-19 relief fraud, William Ihlenfeld is “extremely proud” of his work as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia.

Ihlenfeld resigned on Jan. 20, just before President Donald Trump was inaugurated. Since he was appointed by former President Joe Biden, Ihlenfeld said his resignation was motivated by his belief it is Trump’s prerogative to appoint “whoever he wants” to be the new U.S. Attorney.

“I respect that process and so I stepped down,” Ihlenfeld said.

Ihlenfeld also resigned after his first term, which lasted from August 2010 until December 2016. He returned to the position in October 2021.

Ihlenfeld identified the evolution of the drug threat in the area as the biggest difference between his two terms.

In 2010, the office was combating the diversion of prescription narcotics and the improper prescribing and dispensing of drugs like oxycodone. The drug threat then shifted from a “pill problem” in 2010 to a heroin problem that Ihlenfeld said “exploded” during his first term.

For his second term, Ihlenfeld said there was “no doubt” that the greatest drug threat was fentanyl. He said the drug was causing “tremendous harm” in West Virginia and throughout the country when he reentered office.

“We had never seen anything like it,” Ihlenfeld said. “The biggest contrast between my first and second term would be the nature of the drug threat we faced.”

As he returned to the office “more prepared and more experienced,” Ihlenfeld made prosecuting drug trafficking organizations one of his top priorities. This required the office to work very closely with the Ohio Valley Drug Task Force, which gathers evidence for drug trafficking cases, and other state drug task forces.

Ihlenfeld noted the takedown of drug trafficking organizations can be a long process. This process begins with a tip or a source that comes forward with information regarding where the drugs are coming from and how they’re getting into the state.

“You start with that source and work up the chain to identify the suppliers,” Ihlenfeld said. “Typically you’re going to have someone supplying locally, but that person is being supplied by someone who is not a local individual. You follow that and see how that person is getting the drugs.”

Ihlenfeld said the office would “go up the chain” of the drug trafficking organization to ultimately identify the leader. He described the office using whatever technology available to track down these individuals, including sophisticated surveillance techniques.

Ihlenfeld noted that they could not reach the top of every organization, but they were able to in many cases.

“That’s a home run when you get the leader of the organizations because then you have effectively dismantled that organization,” Ihlenfeld said. “When you dismantle the organization, you’ve taken everybody out, indicted everyone and seized whatever assets you could identify.”

During Ihlenfeld’s tenure, an indictment of 82 people in January of 2024 dismantled the Baltimore-based fentanyl trafficking organization led by Gary Brown.

The office also took down a Philadelphia-based drug network in an indictment of 25 people in February of 2024, charged 25 people in Martinsburg in July of 2024 to dismantle a group tied to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel and indicted the Rico McGhee organization in 2023, which halted the top source of illicit drugs to the Ohio Valley.

The focus on combating drug trafficking in the area resulted in Ihlendfeld’s office being one of the nation’s most active in drug prosecutions, ranking number one in the country in 2024 out of ninety-three U.S. Attorney’s Offices.

“Our collaboration with those drug task forces, we were able to become the most active office in the country,” Ihlenfeld noted. “It also takes excellent, hard-working and hard-charging federal prosecutors that work in the Northern District of West Virginia to achieve that, and we’ve got some of the best.”

Gun prosecutions came hand-in-hand with these drug prosecutions. Ihlenfeld said by “keeping the pressure” on these violent organizations that operate “in our backyard” down to Mexico, they were also able to target violent criminals that illegally possess firearms.

Ihlendfeld’s office was the nation’s third most active U.S. Attorney’s Office in gun prosecutions.

“We made it a priority, and we followed through,” Ihlenfeld said. “I would say I’m most proud of the work that the office did over the past four years regarding drug and gun cases.”

With this crackdown on drug trafficking, Ihlenfeld said there was a “noticeable difference” in the amount of drugs available in the Ohio Valley. He noted that when they took down large criminal groups such as the Rico McGhee organization, the Ohio Valley saw a reduction in not only the supply of drugs but violent crime as well.

“In many of the drug cases where people were indicted, they will ultimately receive lengthy prison sentences, and they will not be able to commit crimes for a long period of time,” Ihlenfeld said. “It’s an initial impact that you see in the drug supply, but then it’s a long-term impact by removing those individuals from society for five years, 10 years or sometimes even longer.”

In addition to investigating and prosecuting drug trafficking, Ihlenfeld made cracking down on white-collar crime another priority during his second term. His office placed a special emphasis on healthcare fraud and COVID-19 relief funding fraud.

“From day one, when I came back to the office, I knew that I wanted to emphasize it [healthcare fraud] because, when you look nationally, the amount of healthcare fraud that occurs in our country is staggering, and it costs all of us,” Ihlenfeld noted. “It costs every American more money to pay for their healthcare because of the fraud committed by a relatively small number of people.”

Efforts to uncover healthcare fraud were ramped up through the formation of the Mountaineer Health Care Fraud Strike Force. This group took a data-driven approach to “drilling down and identifying” individuals who might be engaging in healthcare fraud in West Virginia, said Ihlenfeld.

Ihlenfeld’s office also expanded the number of offices it communicated with about healthcare fraud and began talking to private sector companies to gather more information about possible fraudulent activity.

Ihlenfeld commended his office for doing a “tremendous job” in pursuing those who fraudulently obtained COVID-19 relief funding. He added there was still a lot of work to do, with the office having a list of around 200 COVID-19 fraud targets it would investigate.

“You’re going to hear a lot more from the U.S. Attorney’s office going forward [regarding COVID-19 fraud] because Congress extended the statute of limitations by five years,” Ihlenfeld said. “You’ll continue to see those cases, probably until 2030 or 2031, so I’m proud of the work the office has done in that area. We don’t discuss COVID-19 fraud as much because most of us have moved on from the pandemic, but those investigations are ongoing.”

To keep his office active and high-ranking for drug and gun prosecutions, Ihlenfeld said he had to learn from his mistakes during his first term as a U.S. Attorney.

“I realized that what I failed to do the first time in office was to focus enough on the morale of the office and the wellness of the office,” Ihlenfeld said. “I made a concentrated effort to put together a comprehensive wellness program that nobody really saw or heard about unless they worked in the office.”

This wellness plan covered various aspects of personal health, including physical health, mental health and nutrition. The wellness program also resulted in many bonding activities for the office that served as morale boosters, from monthly trivia outings to attending Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games.

“We made the wellness program comprehensive and tried to identify the needs of the office that would help people be happier and healthier,” Ihlenfeld said. “I would put up my wellness program against any other U.S. Attorney’s Office in the country. In fact, we were sort of the envy of the U.S. Attorney community with how much we did with wellness.”

Ihlenfeld noted that focusing on employees’ well-being had greater impacts beyond the office, as higher morale and motivation among employees helped the office reach the top of the country in certain categories.

“When you make the office more productive, that translates into more and better prosecutions,” he said. “That all leads to a safer northern West Virginia.”

Ihlenfeld considers the impact of his office in making the Northern District of West Virginia safer as the most significant part of his legacy as a U.S. Attorney. He said he was most proud of the people he hired to the office, who “continue to knock it out of the park.”

“I am so proud of the people on the staff who I either hired during my first term or second term and how well they’ve done and continue to do,” Ihlenfeld said. “I continue to read the press releases from the office to see who worked on the cases, and it makes me really proud that the people I brought in have done such a tremendous job. The only thing I deserve credit for is being smart enough to hire these people who have done a tremendous job bringing in these cases.”

Ihlenfeld’s next move is to return to the private sector. He plans to announce his new firm within the next couple of weeks.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to return to the private sector, and I hope I continue to serve the public in some way, but that’s what I’m going to do next,” Ihlenfeld said.

On whether he would ever return to the office, Ihlenfeld said it was the “greatest job” he had ever had and that he was “blessed” to have held the position twice.

“If I were to be asked to do it again, I would say ‘yes,'” Ihlenfeld said.

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