Troy Eid

Troy A. Eid (born 1963) is an American attorney who served as United States Attorney for the District of Colorado from 2006 to 2009. He is also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School and University of Denver College of Law, where he teaches civil and criminal law with a focus on energy, natural resources, environmental regulation, and American Indian law.

Early life and education Troy Eid was born in 1963 in Chicago, Illinois to Edward and Sandra Eid. Edward Eid was an Egyptian who immigrated to the United States in 1957 with $100. Eid was raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado and graduated from Stanford University in 1986, majoring in Russian Language and Literature. At Stanford, he was a research assistant for then-Associate Professor Condoleezza Rice.

Eid was elected editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Stanford Daily, and met his future wife, Allison Hartwell, while standing in line at a dorm cafeteria, where she was working as a food-service worker. Eid graduated in 1986 and, along with Hartwell, attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he earned his J.D. degree in 1991. and has been recognized as one of the country's top practicing attorneys in both American Indian Law and environmental law by Chambers USA and was named by The Denver Post as one of 2007's "People to Watch". He passed the Navajo Nation bar examination in 2005 and now chairs the Committee on Training for the Navajo Nation Bar Association, which is responsible for legal education and the semi-annual bar exam on the country's largest Indian reservation.

Eid served as a law clerk to Edith Jones, Chief Judge of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before entering private law practice in 1992 at Holme Roberts & Owen in Denver. Eid withdrew his name from consideration in January 2006, claiming the 13-month selection process was taking too long. Eid also withdrew in part because his wife, Allison Eid, was under consideration for the Denver-based Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; the appointment would have created a conflict of interest since the U.S. Attorney oversees cases that often end up in the circuit court. Eid denied that his withdrawal had anything to do with Jack Abramoff, who had recently been fired from Greenberg Traurig and who was later sentenced to serve five years and ten months in prison on numerous fraud convictions. Eid insisted the fact that he had been selected for an internal ethics committee at the firm indicated that he didn't "have an Abramoff problem." and the White House instead asked Eid to reconsider.

Eid was appointed to the position by President George W. Bush on June 9, 2006, Although the powder was not lethal, Ramsey could face at least five years on charges of knowingly mailing a threat. Later that month, Eid also assessed an alleged assassination plot against then-Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, after alleged plotters Shawn Robert Adolf, Tharin Robert Gartrell and Nathan Johnson were arrested just prior to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Although the trio were charged with drug and weapon charges, Eid declared that the racist statements the suspects made following their arrests had not risen to the legal standard that would have allowed the filing of federal charges for threatening a presidential candidate. At an August 26 press conference, Eid dismissed the trio as drug addicts and said the "meth heads were not a true threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention or the people of Colorado."

Eid was accused by some of showing a political bias by prosecuting Ramsey without charging Gartrell, Adolf and Johnson, but Eid defended the decision; in a letter responding to the criticism, he wrote, "It would have been disgraceful for me or any other prosecutor to charge someone for a crime he didn't commit. ... There was no probable cause to support such a charge. To the extent you challenge my motives or those of the many investigating agents and career prosecutors who all reached this conclusion in this matter, you're mistaken." Eid aides admitted, however, that the decision not to charge was at least in part because they did not believe a jury would convict them based on the reliability of Johnson's testimony; Jeffrey Dorschner, Eid's spokesman, said a defense attorney "would tear him apart."

Joseph Nacchio trial Eid was appointed as the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado on June 9, 2006. Among the cases Eid inherited from his predecessor, acting U.S. Attorney Bill Leone, was the ongoing prosecution of Joseph Nacchio, the former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International indicted on 42 counts of insider trading. Nacchio was accused of selling $101 million of Qwest stock in the first five months of 2001 despite knowledge from company insider's that Qwest's financial condition was deteriorating. Leone had been lead prosecutor on the Nacchio case since 2002, but several members of the prosecution team had left throughout the years due to infighting that threatened to derail the case. Due to the problems with the Nacchio team and prior failures to achieve convictions against other Qwest employees, U.S. Department of Justice officials became concerned about the Denver office's ability to get a conviction and considered taking over the prosecution. Eid persuaded them otherwise in part by hiring Cliff Stricklin, who prosecuted the case against former Enron officials Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay in response to the Enron scandal. Although Stricklin was difficult to woo following his Enron success, Eid successfully hired Stricklin in August 2006 as First Assistant U.S. Attorney of Colorado and the head prosecutor for the Nacchio case The trial began in March 2007 and in April, Nacchio was convicted of 19 of the 42 counts of insider trading. On July 28, he was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay a $19 million fine and forfeit the $52 million he grossed on the illegal sales. Eid described the Nacchio case as the largest insider trading case in United States history; regarding the verdict and sentencing, Eid said, "This is what the American criminal justice system is all about" and said, "'Convicted felon Joe Nacchio' has a very nice ring to it." Eid appealed the decision to the full appellate court, and recruited Edwin Kneedler, principal deputy solicitor general for the Department of Justice and a veteran Supreme Court attorney, to represent the government in the case; Eid said of Kneedler, "We wanted the best and we got him." In February 2009, an en banc panel of the Tenth Circuit reversed the previous panel's decision and reinstated all 19 convictions.

Operation Central Beginning in 2007, Eid oversaw the nationally recognized Operation Central, a successful joint U.S.-Mexican prosecution of criminal trafficking in endangered sea turtles. A three-year international investigation led to multiple arrests on charges of smuggling the skins of endangered sea turtles and other protected animals for use in making boots, belts and wallets. Eid described as "unprecedented" the cooperation between U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents and Mexican authorities.

In recognition of the success of Operation Central, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Justice were later awarded the Animal Welfare Institute's prestigious Clark R. Bavin Law Enforcement Award for this multi-year undercover investigation of unlawful international trafficking in sea turtle parts and products. The award was presented by Willem Wijnstekers, Secretary-General of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Operation Central was the largest probe ever of the unlawful commercial exploitation of highly endangered sea turtles – all of which are listed under Appendix I of CITES which bans international trade. Operation Central was planned and designed to infiltrate two widely active segments of the black market wildlife trade – sea turtle skin and skin products moving illegally from Mexico to the United States and sea turtle shell and shell products being smuggled to the United States from China. The investigation also documented the role of U.S. retailers in the unlawful commercial exploitation of other CITES-listed species (including caimans and lizards) in the exotic boot trade. The government of Mexico coordinated enforcement activities with the Fish and Wildlife Service that also resulted in arrests in Mexico.

The Clark R. Bavin Wildlife Law Enforcement Awards are named in memory of the late Chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Office of Law Enforcement, who pioneered the agency's highly effective use of covert investigations and "sting" operations to uncover illegal wildlife trade. The awards have traditionally been presented by the Secretary-General of CITES during meetings of the Conference of the Parties.

Resignation and Attorney General bid With the election of President Barack Obama, Eid was expected to be replaced as U.S. Attorney, as is the custom with a change of presidential administrations. On January 7, 2009, Eid announced he would resign as U.S. Attorney on January 19, the day before President Barack Obama's inauguration, and run for Colorado Attorney General in 2010. Eid sought to fill the position expected to be vacated by John W. Suthers, who was planning to run for governor or U.S. Senate. However, shortly after Eid's resignation, Suthers announced that he would seek re-election as attorney general rather than run for higher office. In response, Eid dropped plans to run for attorney general, describing Suthers as one of his close friends and claiming, "Challenging John is not part of my equation." Eid rejoined the private firm Greenberg Traurig, where he had worked from 2003 to 2006.

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