Since Andrew Boutros took over in April 2025, Chicago’s U.S. Attorney’s Office has been hit with an unusual wave of senior departures, with at least eight top prosecutors either leaving or being reassigned. The leadership shakeup has trimmed the office’s ranks from roughly 144 prosecutors a year ago to about 125 now and has left several sections without their long-time chiefs and supervisors.
As reported by ABC7 Chicago, the I-Team found that seven section chiefs have left and one was reassigned since Boutros assumed the job. That reporting, based on a review of government workforce figures, shows U.S. Attorney’s Offices nationwide lost roughly 14 percent of staff, falling from 11,817 to 10,145 between December 2024 and December 2025, and that the Northern District’s headcount dropped from 144 to as low as 121 before the office provided an updated total of 125.
High-Profile Prosecutors Head For The Exits
The vacancies include marquee figures who led major units: Amarjeet Bhachu (public corruption), Sarah Streicker (public corruption and organized crime), Erika Csicsila (former criminal-division chief), Steve Dollear (national security), Brian Kerwin (appeals), Scott Edenfield (violent crime) and Barry Jonas (national security). The exodus and the roles those prosecutors played were detailed by the Chicago Sun-Times, which noted some departed via buyouts or early retirement.
Boutros Says He Is Rebuilding The Bench
In a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office thanked former section chiefs and said many departures followed a government-wide early retirement offer, the recent shutdown and the launch of an immigration enforcement surge known locally as Operation Midway Blitz. The office added that it is “hiring several dozens” of Assistant U.S. Attorneys and that ten new hires have already started, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release.
Why Lawyers Are Worried
Defense lawyers and former prosecutors say losing multiple chiefs in a short span drains institutional memory and makes supervision of complex dockets harder. “I think this is a historic level of turnover within this narrow span of time,” ABC7 legal analyst Gil Soffer told the station, a concern echoed by other local legal figures in the I-Team reporting.
What It Means For Big Chicago Cases
The departures remove prosecutors who helped carry major Chicago prosecutions, including work on the Madigan and Burke matters, and that raises questions about continuity for appeals and multi-year investigations, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. At the same time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office points to a sharp year-over-year increase in federal criminal indictments in 2025 as evidence it is prosecuting aggressively despite a smaller staff, per a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release…