Nicholas Acker has served as Chief Counsel to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Energy since May 2020. Mr. Acker previously served at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for 25 years in multiple capacities. From 2010 to 2020, he was a Senior Trial Attorney with the Fraud Section of DOJ’s Criminal Division in Washington, D.C., where he prosecuted securities and financial fraud, health care fraud and violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) throughout the United States, and handled a wide range of policy matters. From 2006 to 2010, he was Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe at the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) of DOJ’s Criminal Division, where he oversaw criminal justice reform and rule-of-law programs in Central and Eastern Europe, supervising a dozen experienced U.S. prosecutors serving as Resident Legal Advisors at U.S. embassies in that region. From 2002 to 2006, he was the Department of Justice Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy, where he led U.S.-Italian cooperation on all criminal justice matters affecting both countries, including organized crime, terrorism, financial crime and corruption. From 1995 to 2002, Mr. Acker served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he specialized in white collar crime and environmental crimes. Before joining DOJ, he worked as an Associate Attorney at a major international law firm based in New York and served as a judicial law clerk to U.S. District Judge Alfred M. Wolin of the District of New Jersey.
Mr. Acker graduated with honors from George Washington University Law School in 1988, where he was Articles Editor of the Law Review. He obtained a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 1984, where he was Assistant Managing Editor of the Cornell Daily Sun. He is the author of a chapter of a book on U.S.-Italian cooperation in organized crime and terrorism matters. He is fluent in Italian and German, proficient in Spanish and has a working knowledge of French.