After graduating from Texas A&M in 2000, Steve Cox was working as a tour guide in Paris for Bullfrog Bike Tours when he met a group of backpacking sightseers, including a young woman from Houston, at the Eiffel Tower for an evening excursion on wheels. He flirted with Cristina de la Torre, and she flirted back.
“Our first date was the next night – the night before Bastille Day – with Ferris wheels, music, dancing and biking around the City of Lights,” he says. “She likes to say she knew right away that I was the one. I was a bit slow on the uptake.”
But Cox figured it out. Three years later, he took Cristina – then his girlfriend – back to the spot where they met.
“I proposed to her in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, and we revisited all the sites of our first tour and first date – by bike,” he says.
Exactly two decades after that first bike ride, then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr appointed Cox to be the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Texas last May in an effort to stabilize an office that had seen its previous U.S. Attorney forced to resign and another high-ranking prosecutor in the office to quit.
On Tuesday afternoon, in a Webex conference with the 55 lawyers and 65 supporting staffers of his office, Cox announced that he was resigning his position effective the end of the day.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei, a career federal prosecutor, would be acting U.S. Attorney until the Biden administration appoints a replacement. Ganjei will be the first Persian American to serve as a U.S. Attorney in EDTX’s 174-year history.
In an exclusive interview with The Texas Lawbook, Cox said his nine months as U.S. Attorney and the three years before that as deputy associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. – aka Main Justice – have “been the greatest time of my career.”
“I am most proud of the work we did on regulatory reform and white-collar enforcement reform,” he said. “But I’m ready to take some time off with the family and re-enter the private sector, where I have spent the majority of my career.”
Cox was born in Louisiana, but his family moved to Houston when he was six. His father was an engineer in the oil and gas industry for many years, but he retired as an engineer at the Johnson Space Center.
A 2006 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, Cox spent three years practicing law at Wilmer Hale and two years as a lawyer with the FBI working with the Webster Commission and its investigation into the agency’s handling of information regarding U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009.
In 2011, Cox joined the in-house legal department of Apache Corp. in Houston, where he stayed for six years.
The Trump administration came calling in 2017.
Steve Cox with his family at his swearing in as EDTX U.S. Attorney
While Cox has received considerable attention as the EDTX’s chief prosecutor, the record shows he had a huge pro-business impact during his three years at Main Justice.
“Shortly before starting my job in the administration, I identified a handful of reforms that I wanted to pursue, and the topics included, among a few other things, rulemaking by guidance and the False Claims Act,” he said. “[In] my mind, these topics would fit well within the regulatory reform agenda of the administration.
“Rulemaking by guidance was quintessentially a regulatory problem, and because of the structure of the statute and the qui tam provision, practically any regulatory regime involving federal money has the potential to be enforced, appropriately or not, through the FCA,” he said. “Fortunately, these ideas resonated with department leadership.”
While at Main Justice, Cox spearheaded multiple regulatory and white-collar enforcement reforms that curbed the practice of rulemaking by guidance documents. Those reforms which were implemented through specific documents, including the “Brand Memo,” which was named after Cox’s boss, Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. In addition, Cox served as vice chair of DOJ’s working group on corporate enforcement and accountability.
“I am very proud of our policies on False Claims Act enforcement, including the Granston Memo on exercising the DOJ’s authority to dismiss qui tam actions that should not proceed and the cooperation policy that incentivizes voluntary disclosure, cooperation and remedial measures,” he said. “Another top accomplishment is the ‘anti-piling on’ policy that discourages duplicative penalties by taking into account the penalties being paid to other sovereigns.”
Cox points to the DOJ’s recent settlement with Purdue Pharma as an example of the application of the anti-piling on policy being significant. He said DOJ had a $2 billion forfeiture claim against the company.
“The court-approved resolution, however, contemplates that DOJ would only take $225 million and instead DOJ would give ‘credit’ for the remaining $1.775 billion based on the value that the company will be providing to state and local governments through the formation of a public benefit company.
“There are important conditions for this part of the [Purdue Pharma] deal – namely the post-bankruptcy emergence of a public benefit company for the benefit of the state and local governments – but it is a first-of-its-kind resolution made possible only by the anti-piling on policy,” he said.
Cox was thrust into the spotlight in May 2020 when then-Attorney General William Barr appointed him to be the Eastern District’s U.S. attorney.
He replaced former U.S. Attorney Joseph Brown, who abruptly resigned. Some argue Brown was forced out by Barr and others at Main Justice over controversy surrounding efforts by a group of EDTX federal prosecutors to bring civil and criminal charges against Walmart for its role in the opioid crisis.
A ProPublica article published last spring revealed that Joshua Russ, a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District who was overseeing a civil investigation against Walmart, resigned over interference by leaders at Main Justice who were opposed to aggressively pursuing charges against the company.
“Steve came into a nearly impossible situation – an office in turmoil and a staff upset about what happened to his predecessor – and he did an excellent job under the circumstances,” a lawyer familiar with the EDTX U.S. Attorney’s office told The Texas Lawbook under the condition that they not be identified.
“There were a handful of prosecutors and staff who were loyal to Joe and very suspicious of Steve from the start,” the lawyer said. “Those prosecutors are still upset at what happened to Joe, but I think Steve showed them that he is a professional and he gained the trust and confidence of most of them.”
By all accounts, Cox is crazy smart, an excellent lawyer and a people person. Lawyers who worked with Cox and across the table from him say he’s a quick study – a skill colleagues say he needed in spades during his time as the lead federal prosecutor based in Beaumont.
“I never witnessed any turmoil in the office, but in my first couple weeks, a few people understandably wanted to talk to me about what had happened before my arrival,” Cox said. “And while I was willing to listen to people’s concerns during those conversations, I tried to emphasize that I was not interested in looking backward and that I wanted their advice on how we could succeed going forward.
“As people got to know me, I think they gained a lot of confidence that we were on a brand new path together,” he said.
Some Eastern District prosecutors believed Barr sent Cox to Texas because he opposed the litigation against Walmart – a proposition that even those lawyers admit there is no evidence to support.
“I couldn’t comment on any pending litigation, but my role in any case while I was in the associate AG’s office was to do all I could to drive it forward to a successful and just result, and that case was no different,” Cox told The Texas Lawbook.
The Walmart controversy aside, Cox and the prosecutors in the Eastern District implemented significant personnel and structural changes to the office that he said leverages the talent of the department.
“We moved personnel between divisions, added new hires, and created new roles to better accomplish our mission,” he said. “In the Criminal Division, we identified specialized fields of practice and named Deputy Chiefs to oversee these new sections across the district. The new structure now leverages the expertise of these deputy chiefs in some of our most specialized cases and creates a horizontal structure that allows for unprecedented collaboration amongst all our offices.”
“We increased our capacity and strengths in white-collar enforcement through the new personnel structure, more targeted recruiting and staffing, new and improved partnerships with law enforcement and new corporate enforcement policies,” he said.
Asked to name his best day at DOJ over the past four years, Cox identifies two specific instances.
“It was a very proud day when Attorney General Barr offered me the U.S. Attorney job and gave me an elbow bump when I accepted it,” he said. “But my best day was probably Oct. 9, 2019, when President Trump signed Executive Orders 13891 and 13892 (which is based on the principles laid out in the Sessions and Brand Memos). We had laid the groundwork for those through our first regulatory reform efforts at DOJ.
“The funny part is that I accidentally asked for the wrong credential to attend the signing ceremony,” he said. “So, instead of attending in-person, I watched it on YouTube from the coffee shop across the street. Still, it was a very proud day.”
Q&A with Eastern District of Texas U.S. Attorney Stephen Cox
The Texas Lawbook: When you agreed to take over the EDTX U.S. Attorney position, what did you see as the biggest issues or hurdles to making that office successful?
Steve Cox: The Eastern District has long enjoyed a reputation of being nimble, fast moving, and highly responsive to law enforcement partners. Naturally, I wanted to show up and hit the ground running. Of course, when we arrived in June 2020, we were facing a worldwide pandemic (and mandatory telework rules) and nationwide civil unrest, and because we were coming from Washington, D.C. and not from within the district, I knew I would need to earn the trust of the people here before sprinting ahead. So, I spent my first few months focused on getting to know the fine men and women in the District — and seeking their advice — which helped a great deal.
Texas Lawbook: What do you think were your biggest successes during your eight months in EDTX?
Steve Cox: First and foremost is what we’ve done to leverage our talented personnel. We recruited two new White Collar AUSAs, we are adding three Healthcare Strike Force prosecutors, and we are recruiting new SAUSAs with white-collar experience. We signed an MOU with the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery so that we could heighten the focus on COVID-related fraud; we joined the Gulf Coast Strike Force so that we have more healthcare fraud capacity; and we joined the Procurement Collusion Strike Force to bolster our efforts to protect competition in the procurement marketplace.
We launched a new transnational elder fraud initiative and placed a talented AUSA from our senior leadership team in charge. The goal is to reimagine our fight against elder fraud and use the same tactics and tools that we use to root out transnational drug cartels to decimate the criminal transnational syndicates preying on our seniors. We established three separate Financial Investigation Groups where we partner with law enforcement to conduct an expansive review of “Suspicious Activity Reports,” which have identified financial transactions that might be related to elder fraud. We established an open, working dialogue with some of the world’s biggest banks so that we can share information and foster better referrals.
We participated in the Department of Justice’s Money Mule Initiative with great results. Money mules are the lifeblood of these international fraud rings, and our district identified and disrupted at least 13 money mules through interviews, warning letters, and criminal charges. We’re also working with Texas retailers and grocers on what to look for when they suspect a large gift card purchase is being used to facilitate money laundering.
Texas Lawbook: You cite expanding EDTX’s white collar capabilities. What are a few cases brought as an example – especially one COVID fraud case?
Steve Cox: One really good example is the Alexa/Echo Tech Support case, which I think illustrates what we can do when we prioritize white collar enforcement, elder fraud, and new partnerships within the government and the private sector. This case was referred by Amazon to the Consumer Protection Branch, which referred it to us because of our interest in partnering on elder fraud and our ability to be nimble and fast-moving.
On COVID fraud, I believe EDTX had 3 of the first PPP fraud cases in the country, and we were one of the first US Attorney Offices to partner with SIGPR to do more PPP fraud. This press release contains links to the Rai, Yates, Shah PPP cases and the Mwanza/Brewer/Fenton EIP case in EDTX. (I had helped Treasury and SBA with the PPP regulations when I was at Main Justice—I became the point person for DOJ on PPP rules—so I was particularly interested in these cases.)
On the antitrust front, I had a great relationship with the Assistant Attorney General from my time at Main Justice, and I told him I wanted to join arms with him on antitrust enforcement. We brought the first wage-fixing antitrust case in the country here in EDTX just last month: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edtx/pr/former-owner-health-care-staffing-company-indicted-wage-fixing