David Locke Hall

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David Locke Hall
Born1955 (age 6869)
California, United States
Alma mater Dartmouth College
OccupationAttorney
Website http://www.wiggin.com/David-L-Hall

David Locke Hall is a highly decorated former Assistant United States Attorney, Naval Intelligence officer, and author.

Contents

Early life

Hall was born in California in 1955. He received a BA from Dartmouth College, an MBA from Yale, and JD and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. After law school, Hall served as a law clerk to the Honorable Walter King Stapleton, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Career

Assistant United States Attorney

Hall served for 23 years with the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney, retiring in 2013. He tried a large number of significant cases to verdict, including mobster Roy Stocker of the K&A Gang. [1] Hall also prosecuted the Leath Cocaine Trafficking Organization, the leaders of which were involved in shooting Philadelphia Police Officer Donald McMullin. [2]

A significant focus of Hall's prosecutorial career was the investigation and prosecution of weapons proliferation and technology transfer offenders. In the 1990s, he prosecuted the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor), Kentron, Fuchs Electronics, and others for violations of the Arms Export Control Act during the apartheid era. [3] The ARMSCOR case was a significant point of contention between the United States and the Republic of South Africa because ARMSCOR and Kentron were state-owned corporations. [4] After lengthy negotiations, the dispute was resolved by the pleas of ARMSCOR, Kentron, and Fuchs to criminal charges and the payment of fines in excess of $11 million. [5]

From 2004 to 2009, Hall investigated and prosecuted Amir Hossein Ardebili, an Iranian arms procurement agent working in Shiraz, Iran, acquiring components for the F4, F14, and other military aircraft, as well as microchips for use in phased array radar. [6] The years-long investigation resulted in an undercover meeting between Ardebili and U.S. agents on October 1 and October 2, 2007, in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, where Ardebili was arrested by Georgian authorities. He was extradited to the United States in January 2008. Ardebili pled guilty to violations of the Arms Export Control Act, International Emergency Economic Powers Act, smuggling, conspiracy and money laundering in May 2008. [7] The Ardebili case is the subject of a book, Operation Shakespeare: The True Story of an Elite International Sting, written by John Shiffman. [8]

From 2009 to 2013, Hall led the undercover investigation and prosecution of Xiang Li, a Chinese software pirate. Xiang Li's Chengdu, China-based operation sold over $100 million in cracked software products with multiple high-tech applications, including telecommunications, explosive simulation, aerospace, satellite tracking, and flight simulation. [9] The undercover investigation led to a meeting on Saipan between federal agents and Xiang Li in June 2011. At that meeting, Xiang Li delivered 20 gigabytes of proprietary data hacked from a defense contractor. Xiang Li was charged with trafficking in more than $100 million in stolen copyrighted software. He pled guilty in January 2013 and in June 2013 was sentenced to 12 years incarceration. [10]

Hall has testified before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States House of Representatives on "Examining the Effectiveness of the Kingpin Designation Act in the Western Hemisphere." [11]

Hall also served as the Special Prosecutor for the FBI Art Crime Team. During this time, he worked closely with FBI Special Agent Robert King Wittman. Hall negotiated the return of three stolen Norman Rockwell paintings from Brazil in 2001. [12] In 2009, he led the successful undercover investigation and prosecution of Marcus Patmon, an art thief who sold stolen works by Picasso. [13] Hall forfeited and returned to Iraq a collection of Mesopotamian artifacts in 2010. [14] In 2011, Hall effected the return to Peru of a gold Moche monkey head (circa 300 A.D.) that had been looted from the royal tombs of Sipan. [15] In 2013, Hall seized and forfeited the Rosenberg Diary, the long-lost diary of Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi propagandist and Reich Minister for the occupied eastern territories. The Rosenberg Diary is now part of the Holocaust Museum collection. [16]

Military service

Hall served in the United States Navy and Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer for thirty years. Commissioned in 1984, he retired at the rank of captain in 2015. [17] He commanded three intelligence units and served with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in addition to numerous Navy commands. He was a third-generation naval officer, his father having served as a Marine Corps officer with the Second Marine Division in World War II.

Awards and recognitions

Throughout his career, Hall has received numerous awards in recognition of his outstanding professional and military service including:

2013- "Meritorious Service Medal" by the United States Navy

2012- "International Achievement Award" by the Department of Homeland Security

2010- "SAFE Beacon Award" by Saving Antiquities for Everyone [18]

2008- "Excellence in Law Enforcement Award" by the Department of Homeland Security

2008- "Defense Meritorious Service Medal" by the Department of Defense

2004- "Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal" by the United States Navy

2000- "Joint Service Commendation Medal" by the Department of Defense

1998- "Director's Award for Superior Performance" by the Department of Justice

1997- "FBI Director Citation" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Published work

2015- "CRACK99: The Takedown of a $100 Million Chinese Software Pirate" W. W. Norton [19]

2015- "Stolen Cultural Property: A Risk Management Primer" (chapter co-author), "The Legal Guide for Museum Professionals (J. Courtney, ed.)", Rowman and Littlefield [20]

1991- "The Reagan Wars: A Constitutional Perspective on War Powers and the Presidency" Westview Press [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sting operation</span> Deceptive way to catch a person committing a crime

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Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or an agent of the state induces a person to commit a crime that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit. In US law, it is defined as "the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Espionage Act of 1917</span> United States federal law

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cox Report</span> 1999 report on Chinese covert operations in the United States in the 1980s and 90s

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval Criminal Investigative Service</span> Law enforcement agency of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic Espionage Act of 1996</span>

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 was a 6 title Act of Congress dealing with a wide range of issues, including not only industrial espionage, but the insanity defense, matters regarding the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, requirements for presentence investigation reports, and the United States Sentencing Commission reports regarding encryption or scrambling technology, and other technical and minor amendments.

Alfred Epaminondas Sarant, also known as Filipp Georgievich Staros and Philip Georgievich Staros, was an engineer and a member of the Communist party in New York City in 1944. He was part of the Rosenberg spy ring that reported to Soviet intelligence. Sarant worked on secret military radar at the United States Army Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Alexandre Feklisov, one of the KGB case officers who handled the Rosenberg spy apparatus described Sarant and Joel Barr as among the most productive members of the group. Sarant was recruited as a Soviet espionage agent by Barr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuclear espionage</span> Espionage related to the creation of nuclear weapons

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This page is a timeline of published security lapses in the United States government. These lapses are frequently referenced in congressional and non-governmental oversight. This article does not attempt to capture security vulnerabilities.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese espionage in the United States</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Li Xiang (journalist)</span>

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Amir Hossein Ardebili is an Iranian businessman and convicted arms dealer.

Xiang Li is a Chinese computer hacker. He is serving a twelve-year sentence in federal prison in the United States.

References

  1. Joseph A. Slobodzian,"Federal Jury Convicts 3 In Drug Ring", The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 28, 1991
  2. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-paed-2_93-cr-00386/pdf/USCOURTS-paed-2_93-cr-00386-2.pdf;
  3. http://www.wisconsinproject.org/south-african-firms-settle-arms-smuggling-case/;
  4. Los Angeles Times https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/02/21/us-refusal-to-drop-case-against-s-african-firm-causes-friction/2d1fc0c2-e314-4a0f-a049-f398b64bcf9c/
  5. "South African Firms Settle Arms Smuggling Case". May 1997.
  6. "Iranian pleads guilty to U.S. Arms trafficking charges". Reuters. 2 December 2009.
  7. https://www.justice.gov/file/438491/download [ bare URL PDF ]
  8. Shiffman, John (25 August 2015). Operation Shakespeare. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   9781451655162.
  9. Martin, Andrew (9 January 2013). "Chinese Man Pleads Guilty in Copyright Violation Case". The New York Times.
  10. https://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/releases/2013/130108wilmington2.pdf; https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/USDHSICE/2013/06/11/file_attachments/217734/Crack_99_Sentencing_Memorandum.pdf
  11. "Subcommittee Hearing: Examining the Effectiveness of the Kingpin Designation Act in the Western Hemisphere - Committee on Foreign Affairs". Archived from the original on 2018-05-21. Retrieved 2018-05-20.
  12. "National Briefing | Midwest: Minnesota: Stolen Rockwell Paintings Found". The New York Times. 13 December 2001.
  13. "Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Theft of Picasso and Chagall Etchings".
  14. "Forged Wyeth and Mesopotamian Antiquities Seized".
  15. "Peruvian Artifact Repatriated". 8 December 2011.
  16. "Long-Lost "Rosenberg Diary" Recovered". 14 July 2015.
  17. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-05-02. Retrieved 2018-05-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. "2010: DAVID HALL - SAFE/Saving Antiquities for Everyone". savingantiquities.org. Archived from the original on 2018-05-02.
  19. "Home Page".
  20. The Legal Guide for Museum Professionals.
  21. Hall, David Locke (6 November 1991). The Reagan Wars: A Constitutional Perspective on War Powers and the Presidency. Avalon. ISBN   0813311985.

Further reading