(Tucson, Ariz. – June 17, 2005) The Arizona Bar Association today awarded the Distinguished Public Lawyer Award to Assistant Attorney General Cameron H. Holmes and the Public Lawyer Career Achievement Award to Assistant Attorney General Billie A. Rosen. The awards were presented at a luncheon held at the annual State Bar Convention in Tucson.
Distinguished Public Lawyer Award
The Distinguished Public Lawyer Award is given to an Arizona lawyer who has had a distinguished career in public and has performed other significant community service.
Cameron “Kip” Holmes was honored with the Distinguished Public Lawyer Award. Holmes is the Section Chief for the Financial Remedies Section which concentrates on protecting legitimate commerce from the effects of financial fraud and money laundering through the disruption of drug, fraud and human smuggling related racketeering. In May 2005, Holmes set a new Arizona single-seizure record with a $100,700,000 seizure of bank accounts in an international fraud case.
Holmes started his legal career in 1977 when he joined Joint Legislative Task Force on Organized Crime in the wake of the Don Bolles bombing. He joined the Maricopa County Attorney's Office Organized Crime and Racketeering Unit in 1978, and was a criminal prosecutor until 1981.
Holmes joined the Attorney General’s Office the Organized Crime Project in 1981. This unit was dedicated to prosecuting civil racketeering cases. In 1987 he spent a year as Associate Counsel to the Senate Iran-Contra Committee in Washington D.C. employing money tracing techniques in that investigation.
Holmes played a key role in the development of the Arizona statutes governing forfeiture, money laundering, RICO and money transmitter/financial transaction reporting. He is the Chair of the Arizona Forfeiture Association, the Money Transmitter Regulators Association Money Laundering Committee and the Arizona LECC Forfeiture Subcommittee.
Holmes holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Harvard University and received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Public Lawyer Career Achievement Award
The Public Lawyer Career Achievement Award honors a retired or retiring public attorney who has had a distinguished career as a public lawyer.
Billie A. Rosen was honored with the Public Lawyer Career Achievement Award.
Rosen is currently a Senior Litigation Counsel, and is renown in the Arizona criminal prosecution arena. Rosen’s 30-year career has been devoted to criminal prosecution. She has successfully prosecuted the most complex drug conspiracy and wiretap cases. Rosen joined the Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Control Unit in 1984, and moved to the Criminal Drug Prosecution Section in 1989. During her career, Rosen pioneered several investigative tools in drug law enforcement, including:
- indicia search warrants (which involve searches for indicia of outlaw biker affiliation in RICO cases),
- "sneak and peak" warrants, and
- document warrants, also called financial search warrants.
Rosen has mentored numerous attorneys throughout her career, and provides invaluable leadership to the younger attorneys as they learn to litigate complex wiretap and conspiracy cases.
Rosen started her career with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Department of Justice Honors Program with the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Section. She became an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and eventually supervised the Drug Financial Task Force before leaving to join the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Rosen holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, and she received her law degree from the Hastings College of Law. Rosen is schedule to retire this Fall.