President Bush has nominated Jimmy Gurule, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, to serve as undersecretary of enforcement in the Department of the Treasury.p. As the department’s principal law enforcement official, Gurule would oversee activities related to the efforts to prevent drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and the criminal use of guns and bombs. The position also includes supervision of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is responsible for setting policy and establishing enforcement strategies to combat domestic and international money laundering.p. Among the law enforcement-related agencies in the Treasury Department are the U.S. Customs Service, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.p. If his nomination is approved by the U.S. Senate, it will mark Gurule ‘s second appointment to a federal government position. While on leave from Notre Dame from 1990-92, he served as an assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice. The highest ranking Hispanic in the department’s history, he worked on responses to the growing problem of gangs in major American cities.p. Gurule served earlier this year on a 50-member transition advisory committee that provided assistance to the Bush administration’s Justice Department nominees.p. A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1989, Gurule previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, where he successfully prosecuted the Mexican nationals charged with the murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.p. A past president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, Gurule was honored by the organization in 1993 for his leadership in the Hispanic-American community and in the legal profession. He is among 12 Hispanics nationwide selected as “Pillars of Society” for their efforts to serve the cause of justice in the Hispanic community and he received distinguished service awards from the Justice Department and the DEA for his work on the Camarena case.p. Gurule, who plans to take a leave while serving in the Treasury Department, teaches criminal law, criminal procedure and criminal trial advocacy in the Notre Dame Law School. He is the author of “Complex Criminal Litigation: Prosecuting Drug Enterprises and Organized Crime,” a 914-page treatise that examines the substantive and procedural issues involved in prosecuting large-scale international drug enterprises and organized crime.
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