Steve Bunnell

Partner

Stevan E. Bunnell is a partner in O'Melveny's Washington, DC office and a member of the White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations Practice. His practice focuses on representing corporate and individual clients in civil and criminal matters.

Steve is a highly regarded former prosecutor with nearly two decades of experience in handling cases involving congressional and executive branch corruption, government procurement fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, health care fraud, corporate and securities fraud, export control violations, violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, and money laundering. Prior to joining O'Melveny, Steve served as the Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, where he oversaw the investigation and prosecution of hundreds of federal white collar crime and public corruption cases. He also served as Chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office's Fraud and Public Corruption Section, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Illustrative Professional Experience

• Counsel to the Audit Committee of a large multinational corporation in connection with multiple international antitrust investigations
• Representation of a national trade association and its current and former senior officers in connection with a Department of Justice public corruption investigation
• Counsel for an international airline in an industry-wide U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust investigation
• Counsel for a major pharmaceutical company in a civil Medicaid fraud case brought by the Texas Attorney General's Office
• Counsel for individuals in connection with Justice Department and U.S. Attorney's Office public corruption and procurement fraud investigations, including the Abramoff investigation and the Iraq procurement fraud investigation

Professional Experience at the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Justice Department:

• Handled numerous sensitive and complex public corruption investigations, including criminal allegations against high ranking Executive Branch officials, Members of Congress, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, FBI, DEA and other federal law enforcement agents
• Served as lead prosecutor in United States v. David Bowman, a $6 million embezzlement by an employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was the largest internal theft in the history of the Justice Department
• Supervised many high-profile matters, including: the prosecution of Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor, for bribery of former Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham; investigation of potential criminal violations arising out of accounting practices at Fannie Mae; prosecution of contracting fraud and bribery allegations involving executives of Douglas Development Company and high-ranking officials of the D.C. Government; prosecution of entrepreneur Walter Anderson for evading more than $250 million in federal taxes; investigations of current and former Members of Congress for potential fraud, bribery, and campaign financing violations; and multiple investigations of multi-million dollar federal procurement fraud involving parallel False Claims Act/Qui Tam proceedings
• Advised the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division on legal, policy and administrative matters
• Represented the Criminal Division in dealings with other Justice Department components, executive branch agencies, and foreign counterparts; handled issues or matters involving counterespionage, information sharing with the Intelligence Community, implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act, international anti-corruption initiatives and treaties, seaport crime and security, and international crime control policy

Professional Activities

Law Clerk, Honorable Laurence H. Silberman, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia
Admitted, District of Columbia
Lecturer, Frequent speaker at bar conferences, Justice Department training courses, presentations, and law school classes on issues relating to trial practice and federal prosecution. Recent presentations include: 

Assessing and Managing the Risk of U.S. Law Enforcement Actions, O'Melveny/Deloitte Conference on the Re-Regulation of America After the Financial Meltdown: The View of Washington, DC Insiders, Hong Kong (October 2008)

Federal Plea Bargaining, Federal Bar Association and United States Sentencing Commission Annual Conference on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Orlando, FL (May 2008)

Federal Law Enforcement Trends, Association of Corporate Counsel, Southern California Chapter, Los Angeles, CA (February 2008)

Law Enforcement Issues in Export Control Investigations, TechNet Export Controls Conference, Santa Clara, CA (January 2008)

The Increasing Criminalization of Aviation Accidents, American Bar Association, Tort and Insurance Law Section, Conference on Aviation and Space Law Litigation, Washington, DC (October 2007)

Co-Author, "Start Talking -- Or Else," Legal Times (August 2008) (with Meaghan McLaine); Negotiating Justice: Prosecutorial Perspectives on Federal Plea Bargaining in the District of Columbia, 43 American Criminal Law Review 1063 (2006) (with Mary Patrice Brown)
Awards, Department of Justice Special Achievement Awards (1991, 1993, 1996-2001); Attorney General’s Special Commendation Award (1995)
Treasurer, Edward Bennett Williams American Inn of Court (1999 to present)
Member, Stanford Law School, Board of Visitors (2008 to present); Executive Board, Assistant United States Attorney Association (2002 to present); Executive Board, the Barristers (2007 to present); the Barristers (2004 to present)
Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center and George Washington University Law School (2000 to 2002)
Vice Chair, Steering Committee, Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section, District of Columbia Bar (1996 to 1999)