Leslie Westphal
MAI Project Director/Senior Counsel
Leslie J. Westphal joined the professional team at Madison Associates, Inc. in August 2014 upon her retirement from government service. Ms. Westphal has served as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA), in the District of Oregon for twenty-five (25) years, prosecuting a wide variety of complex civil and criminal asset forfeiture cases, including complex financial investigations involving the recovery of assets from foreign jurisdiction's and non-traditional money laundering methods. As the Asset Forfeiture Chief, in the United States Attorney's Office, Ms. Westphal has supervised a team of attorney's responsible for asset forfeiture and affirmative litigation.
Due to her extensive knowledge and expertise, Ms. Westphal has provided advanced legal instruction to international governments and attorneys in the areas of money laundering, complex financial investigations and asset recovery. She has drafted criminal and forfeiture statutes on controlled substances for foreign governments and has been a frequent legal instructor at Federal interagency asset forfeiture functions. Ms. Westphal will be, among others, a member of Madison's professional training team which provides instruction to client agencies throughout the county on forfeiture, financial investigative techniques, and money laundering.
Prior to becoming an AUSA, Ms. Westphal served as an Assistant Attorney General, Oregon Department of Justice, where she served as the first prosecutor on the Oregon Gang Task force, prosecuted violent felonies, financial crimes and drug trafficking in connection with a variety of federal criminal violations, and expertly briefed and argued criminal appeals before the Oregon Supreme Court.
