John Richter represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate. .
During his tenure at the Criminal Division, he led investigations, prosecutions, and policy development in many areas of federal criminal law, including healthcare fraud, securities fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and export violations, bank secrecy and money laundering offenses, public corruption, and organized crime. He served as a member of the President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force and oversaw the Enron Task Force. He also served as the Commissioner Ex-Officio to the U.S. Sentencing Commission and represented the Department in matters before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
As U.S. Attorney, John served as the chief federal law enforcement officer for the district, tried cases, argued appeals, and oversaw the prosecution and defense of a wide-range of criminal and civil matters on behalf of the U.S., including bank fraud, healthcare fraud, money laundering and other economic and regulatory cases. In 2009, he was awarded the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General’s Award for Combating Medicare and Medicaid Fraud. He also served as Chairman of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on Sentencing, and as a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on White Collar Crime.
John began his career as a federal prosecutor as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta and Oklahoma City, during which time he investigated and prosecuted a wide-range of federal cases, including health care, bank, and securities fraud. He began his career as a prosecutor as an Assistant District Attorney in Cobb County, Georgia.
In private practice, John has represented and defended clients in trials and investigations involving U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in over twenty different districts around the country, the Criminal, Civil Divisions National Security, Antitrust and National Fraud Division at the Justice Department, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control, the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General and state attorney general’s offices for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These matters often have also involved parallel proceedings by other regulatory agencies and parallel class action or qui tam whistleblower litigation.
In addition to tenures as prosecutor and in private practice, John also served as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at WellCare Health Plans, Inc., where he led the successful resolution of enterprise-threatening criminal and civil investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as parallel investigations by other federal and state regulatory agencies, private securities class actions, derivative class actions, and qui tam cases. John currently serves as Chairman of the Federalist Society - Criminal Law and Procedure Executive Committee. From 2022-2024, he served as the president of the National Association of Former United States Attorneys.
