Skip to Content
/ Articles / Government /

Romero Sworn in as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pa.

Jun 22, 2022

PHILADELPHIA – Jacqueline C. Romero, who has served as an Assistant United States Attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for over 16 years, was sworn in on Monday as the United States Attorney for the District.

The Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Juan R. Sánchez, administered the oath of office to Ms. Romero, who was nominated by President Biden to serve as U.S. Attorney on April 21, 2022 and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on June 13, 2022. A public investiture ceremony will be held on a date to be announced in the coming weeks.

“I am deeply honored to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and I am humbled by the opportunity to lead an office in which I have worked for so many years,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “I look forward to continuing to work with the dedicated men and women in the Justice Department, and those in law enforcement agencies at state and local levels, in pursuit of our shared values of protecting Americans’ civil rights, public safety, and the rule of law.”

Prior to her appointment as U.S. Attorney, Ms. Romero was an Assistant United States Attorney representing the government in both affirmative and defensive civil litigation, as well as criminal prosecutions and appeals. She prosecuted cases involving firearms, drugs, fraud, environmental, civil rights, and tax matters, and defended cases including tort, employment, civil rights, and administrative law matters. For the past seven years, Ms. Romero served as the Civil Rights Coordinator for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, supervising all civil rights investigations in the District. She was also assigned to the Affirmative Civil Enforcement Strike Force, focusing on fraud, opioid abuse, and civil rights prosecutions. Finally, Ms. Romero also had collateral duties with Federal Reentry Court (STAR program), Philadelphia Youth Court, and the Office’s Hiring Committee. In addition to her work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. Romero has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Temple University’s James E. Beasley School of Law Trial Advocacy Program for over five years, and has been a volunteer faculty member with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy for the last four years.

Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. Romero previously served as Senior Counsel for the United States Mint where she served as in-house counsel giving advice to the Mint on manufacturing processes, the unionized workforce, and international e-commerce; as a Trial Attorney with the Justice Department’s Commercial Litigation Section; and as a Litigation Associate with the firm Lowenstein Sandler PC in New Jersey. She is a former fellow of both the German Marshall Fund and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, has served as President of the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania in 2018 and has served on its Board, as well as the Board of the LGBTQ Bar Association of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Judicial Commission. Further, she is a lifetime member of the Hispanic National Bar Association and served on its Special Commission on Law Enforcement Reform and Racial Justice and on its Latina Commission.

As U.S. Attorney, Ms. Romero is the chief federal law enforcement officer responsible for all federal criminal prosecutions and civil litigation involving the United States in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which is one of the nation’s most populous districts with over 5 million people residing within its nine counties (Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, and Philadelphia counties), covering about 4,700 square miles.  Ms. Romero supervises a staff of approximately 140 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and a similar number of non-attorney support personnel at offices in Philadelphia and Allentown.

Jennifer Arbittier Williams, who for the past 18 months served as Acting U.S. Attorney and then as Court-appointed U.S. Attorney, announced that she will remain with the Office for a period of time to assist with the transition before moving on. Nelson S.T. Thayer, Jr., was appointed to serve as the Office’s First Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Ms. Romero is the 40th U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, an office that was established in 1789. She resides in Philadelphia, PA, and is the first woman to be appointed by a President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the position. She is also the first person of color and the first person to identify as LGBTQIA+ to lead the Office. Ms. Romero earned her B.A., magna cum laude, with a major in English and a minor in Political Science from the College of New Jersey, and earned her J.D. from Rutgers Law School, Newark.

We need your support!

Your contribution makes community media possible.

A donation of any size to your nonprofit media organization supports the future of media access in our community - the things you love, and the places you care about, by the people you know.

Live Streaming