Brett Sagel is currently an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California in the Santa Ana Office and primarily specializes in White-Collar Crime and Public Corruption. Professor Sagel has been at this office since 2004 and with the United States Department of Justice since 1999, when he was hired into the Attorney General’s Honors Law Graduate Program. Most recently Professor Sagel was the lead prosecutor in the public corruption trial of the former Sheriff of Orange County, which resulted in the conviction of the former Sheriff and a 5 ½ year prison sentence as well as criminal convictions against two of the former Assistant Sheriffs. In the nearly eleven years as a federal prosecutor, Professor Sagel has successfully prosecuted numerous other jury trials and federal cases, including, among others: prosecuting and convicting three members of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang in a large-scale, Capital Murder case involving 17 murders and attempted murders over a 30-year period; the prosecution of Igor Olenicoff, which resulted in a criminal conviction and a restitution payment of $52 million to the federal government; prosecuting and convicting five leaders of a multi-million dollar tax fraud and ponzi scheme after a jury trial in a in Salt Lake City; and the criminal conviction in an embezzlement case against a former manager of Deloitte and Touche, LLP.

Professor Sagel also teaches Basic Trial Advocacy at the Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center, which is a two-week course for all new federal prosecutors, and Criminal Law at the Criminal Justice Training Center at Goldenwest College. He also spent approximately 20 days in China as part of the U.S. State Department’s U.S. Speaker and Specialist Program lecturing throughout China to government officials, law students, and other legal groups on Combating Corruption and Prosecuting Corporate Crime. Professor Sagel has also lectured at several government and private seminars on combating corruption, white-collar fraud, and criminal tax matters.