CINCINNATI — Federal agents and prosecutors could play a significantly greater role in combating crime in Cincinnati under the leadership of U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace II, whom President Trump nominated for the top law enforcement position in southern Ohio.
Since Gerace was sworn into office on Aug. 11, he announced a slew of high-profile criminal cases: a man in the country illegally faces child sexual exploitation charges, a former Cincinnati Children’s Hospital doctor was charged with child pornography and two of the men involved in the infamous downtown brawl face federal drug and gun crimes.
WATCH: What will new U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace II's focus be?
This was the first time an FBI director had visited Cincinnati publicly in at least five years.
“The philosophical approach of the U.S. attorney makes a difference because the Southern District of Ohio is almost just a middle-of-the-road district,” said former U.S. Attorney Ben Glassman, who hired Gerace as an assistant prosecutor in 2016.
Glassman predicts that Gerace will continue to prosecute the violent crime and drug cases that were priorities under his predecessor, former U.S. Attorney Ken Parker, but also take on more national and global cases.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see some big cases under investigation,” Glassman said, suggesting that counterespionage, national security, tariff evasion, and large criminal enterprises could be future targets.
In 2018, Gerace successfully prosecuted the district’s first international terrorism case. A judge convicted a Jordanian national living in Dayton of trying to join ISIS and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
But Gerace, who declined an on-camera interview with WCPO, will have to balance the changing priorities of the Department of Justice and federal law enforcement agencies.
“The FBI has publicly stated that it intends to shift a lot of its resources towards fighting violent crime,” Glassman said.
Gerace will also have to deal with staffing shortages, which could impact the types of and number of criminal cases he can prosecute, unless he gets more federal funding.
“The Department of Justice, including this U.S. attorney’s office, has lost a lot of people, both support staff and line prosecutors,” Glassman said. “Dominick has the ability and the leadership to have the best kind of U.S. attorney’s office … but he is going to need the resources from Washington to be able to do that.”
David DeVillers, who served as U.S. Attorney here from 2019 to 2021, agreed: “It's not just the prosecutors; we need more ATF agents to investigate these cases as well.”
DeVillers said more federal arrests could have a real impact on reducing violence in Cincinnati, particularly if it’s well targeted.
“The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by a tiny portion of the criminal community,” DeVillers said. “You prioritize those individuals who maybe have got away with it … and that could be impactful to really reducing crime.”
DeVillers said criminals fear the federal justice system because of much longer prison terms, judges who have lifetime appointments and must follow sentencing guidelines, and the extremely high conviction rate.
“Each U.S. attorney needs to decide, ‘Alright what's the biggest problem in my district?’ and I'm certain Dom will do that,” said DeVillers, who went after fentanyl dealers and oversaw the public corruption cases at the Ohio statehouse and Cincinnati City Hall that began under Glassman’s tenure.
DeVillers appointed Gerace as his deputy criminal chief in 2020, supervising his Dayton office, and described him as a bright, well-respected prosecutor.
“If the overall consensus in Cincinnati is that violent crime is our problem, we want to deal with this,” then Gerace will work with the Hamilton County prosecutor, police, the FBI, and other task forces on that," said DeVillers. “If the issue is corruption, he’s going to try to deal with that.”
