Attorney General Cuccinelli
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II was elected Attorney General of Virginia and sworn into office on January 16, 2010. As attorney general, he is responsible for overseeing an office of more than 425 employees
Some of the key duties of the attorney general are:
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to serve as the attorney for the government of the commonwealth and its agencies and commissions, providing them with legal advice and representation in court;
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to uphold and defend the United States and Virginia constitutions and to defend the constitutionality of Virginia laws when they are challenged in court;
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to clarify the law for his clients through official legal opinions;
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to prosecute sexual predators and gang members;
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to protect the elderly and the incapacitated from abuse and neglect;
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to conduct or assist in criminal investigations and prosecutions in certain cases, such as Medicaid fraud, money laundering, theft of state property, environmental crimes, and computer crimes;
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and to enforce state laws that protect businesses and consumers from scams and fraud.
As attorney general, Mr. Cuccinelli has recovered more taxpayer dollars stolen through Medicaid fraud than have been recovered at any other time in the office’s history. He has also deployed his computer crimes experts to aid local law enforcement in arresting and prosecuting more child pornographers, increasing the number of convictions to two to three a month – again, the highest rate in the office’s history. He has also dedicated staff to fighting the scourge of human trafficking – the forced sex and forced labor trade – by toughening laws and training local law enforcement and prosecutors how to spot it and prosecute it under existing Virginia law. This effort has led to Virginia being recognized as one of the most improved states in the nation in fighting trafficking by national victims advocacy group Polaris Project.
Prior to serving as attorney general, Mr. Cuccinelli served in the Senate of Virginia from August 2002 to January 2010. As a state senator and private attorney, he worked to improve the commonwealth's mental health system. In private practice, he served as a court-appointed attorney for individuals with mental illnesses in Virginia’s involuntary civil commitment process. After joining the Senate in 2002, he passed legislation that provided for more humane treatment of the mentally ill.
He has also been a champion for Virginian’s property rights, sponsoring a law (and as attorney general, helping to write and pass a constitutional amendment) to dramatically curb the state’s eminent domain power, so homes, farms, and small businesses can no longer be taken by government and given to another private entity for development, merely to increase tax revenues, economic development, or private gain.
He made government more transparent and accountable to its citizens by writing a law to put the state’s budget and expense details online in a format that citizens could easily access and understand.
As attorney general, Mr. Cuccinelli works to protect consumers from scams and fraud, take the worst sexually violent predators out of our communities, put gang members in jail, and save taxpayers millions each year by prosecuting fraud in the commonwealth.
Attorney General Cuccinelli earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University, and his juris doctor from the George Mason University School of Law and Economics.