He has justice in his genes

The job: Assistant U.S. attorney and chief of the office’s Major Frauds Section. He supervises 40 attorneys who prosecute mortgage, securities, corporate, government, investment and tax fraud in seven Southern California counties (Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo).

Education: Bachelor’s degree in engineering from UCLA in 1991; law degree, UC Hastings College of the Law, 1994

Legal career: Admitted to State Bar of California, 1994. Clerked for U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon and Judge Melvyn Brunetti of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Worked four years as an associate with the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles. In 2001, he joined the U.S. attorney’s office.

In the family: Even while pursuing an engineering degree, law was on Axel’s mind. And for good reason. His father, Robert, is a longtime court commissioner at the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Norwalk, and his grandfather Nathan was a Los Angeles County Municipal Court judge. “It’s fun running into the old-timers around here who know my dad or appeared before my grandfather,” he said.

Why he joined the U.S. attorney’s office: “I wanted a different experience, trial experience, an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. Public service is a component of it. You get to have a goal of doing the right thing.”

Memorable cases: Prosecuted high-profile New York lawyer Melvyn Weiss for secretly paying kickbacks to investors who agreed to hire his firm to file class-action lawsuits. Weiss pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge and was sentenced in 2008 to 30 months in federal prison. Was among a team of prosecutors that helped convict French bank Credit Lyonnais and its principals for committing fraud as part of a takeover of a California insurance company.

What motivates you in prosecuting fraud: “It has devastating effects on individual victims. It can be every bit as harmful, if not more so, than violent crime.”

Biggest obstacles in prosecuting white-collar crime: “They’re often document-intense cases,” he said. The Weiss case, for instance, involved more than 250,000 pages of records from dozens of class-action lawsuits that Weiss and his firm filed. “And we do go up against some of the finest lawyers in town. You’re having everything thrown at you,” he said.

Best part of the job: “A colleague once said, ‘Our job is to discover the truth and use the truth to do justice.’ That really encapsulated what we’re trying to do and why it’s such a great job.”

Personal: Axel, 40, is married to Keri Axel, who is also an assistant U.S. attorney in the Los Angeles office. They have three children.

Diversions: Family and work don’t leave room for much else. Weekends often include the children’s soccer or baseball games, sometimes an occasional hike. “Between them and the job,” he said, “there’s not a lot of free time.”

Advice for investors to avoid becoming victims: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. That’s a famous line. But it’s true. I’ve had cases where individuals were offering 10% or 15% a month. And if you see the word guaranteed, it’s a huge red flag.”

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stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com