Evan Norris

Each year, NAFUSA recognizes an Assistant U.S. Attorney for outstanding performance through the J. Michael Bradford Memorial Award. The award is named after J. Michael Bradford, who served as a U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Texas from 1994 to 2001. Bradford, who died in 2003, had a distinguished career in public service, including successfully defending the government against lawsuits stemming from the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian’s compound in Waco, Texas. NAFUSA annually solicits nominations from current U.S. Attorneys for the Bradford Award. Typically, the recipient has handled a significant investigation and prosecution or a series of prosecutions which has had a significant impact and merits special recognition.

Once again, a number of exceptional nominations were made by U.S. Attorneys around the country. The J. Michael Bradford Award Committee was chaired by NAFUSA Vice President Terry Flynn. Its members included Paul Coggins, Jenny Durkan, Ron Machen, Shari Potter and Rich Roper. This year, the Board voted to give the award to AUSA Evan M. Norris of the Eastern District of New York, who was nominated by former United States Attorney Robert Capers, who wrote: “Mr. Norris has earned the respect of his fellow federal prosecutors for his leadership and creative and relentless investigative skills, particularly as exemplified through the Office’s groundbreaking prosecution of corruption in Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the world soccer governing body”.

From the inception of the investigation until 2017, Mr. Norris was the lead prosecutor of the FIFA case, one of the most significant prosecutions ever brought by the Department of Justice. Mr. Norris led a years-long investigation that resulted in the filing of RICO, fraud, and money laundering charges against dozens of individuals and entities for their involvement in the corruption of international soccer. Together with a team of AUSAs and agents from the FBI and IRS, Mr. Norris devised the investigative and prosecutorial strategies for this groundbreaking cross-border case and managed the Office’s coordination with foreign enforcement authorities both in the period leading up to the first arrests in Switzerland in May 2015 and continuing thereafter. In December 2015, Mr. Norris was appointed Director of the EDNY FIFA Task Force, in which position he supervised teams of AUSAs and DOJ trial attorneys prosecuting the indicted case, United States v. Jeffrey Webb et al., and 11 related cases, and conducting multiple related investigations of individuals and entities. Under Mr. Norris’s leadership, the Office publicly announced charges against 43 individuals and entities, 22 guilty pleas, and the entry into a deferred prosecution agreement with an Argentine sports marketing company. In total, the individual and corporate resolutions announced under Mr. Norris’s leadership included over $330 million in forfeiture and criminal penalties.

The other nominees were:

Joseph Batte
Eastern District of Texas

Michael Collyer
Northern District of Ohio

Patrick Fitzgerald
Central District of California

Shane Harrigan
Southern District of California

Richard Hayes
Eastern District of New York

Timothy Howard
Southern District of New York

Debra Kanof
Western District of Texas

Eric Klumb
District of South Carolina

Richard Murphy
Northern District of Iowa

Stephen Odell
District of Oregon

Amy Padden
District of Colorado

David Petermann
Western District of Oklahoma

Kristine Rollinson
Southern District of Texas

Michael Sherwin
Southern District of Florida

Gary Sussman
District of Oregon

Brent Tabacchi
Southern District of Ohio

Tyler Tornabene
Eastern District of Washington

Christopher Tortorice
Eastern District of Texas