Rina Harris

After more than a decade at Justice Department headquarters focusing on complex fraud matters, Rina Tucker Harris moved to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and False Claims Act cases.

Harris earned her bachelor’s degree in politics and theater from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in 1989 and her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1992.

Harris joined the Justice Department in July 1997 as a trial attorney in the commercial litigation branch of the civil division. While in the position she focused on False Claims Act cases and other complex fraud matters.

She left the job in August 2002 to join the criminal division's fraud section. In the years she was with the fraud section, Harris focused on complex fraud and white-collar criminal matters including violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

She was involved in the prosecution of John Warwick, a Virginia resident who pleaded guilty for participating in a conspiracy to bribe former Panamanian government officials. Warwick and his co-conspirator authorised bribes of more than US$200,000 to former officials in the Panamanian government in order to secure business for Ports Engineering Consultants, an engineering firm based in Virginia Beach.

Harris held various positions in the criminal division fraud section and wasn't a long-time FCPA prosecutor. She left the department in 2012 but remained in government, taking an enforcement attorney position at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has since become a senior litigation counsel at the same agency.