Brosio Recommended as Interim U.S. Attorney

Gary Feess, the acting U.S. attorney, said that he has recommended to U.S. Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh that he appoint Robert L. Brosio, chief of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, as the interim U.S. attorney if a new one has not been selected by Nov. 30.

Feess has been acting U.S. attorney since June, when Robert Bonner vacated the position to take a federal judgeship. On Friday, Feess announced that he was resigning effective Nov. 30 to return to private law practice. Feess, 41, will become a partner in the Los Angeles office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, a national law firm based in Cleveland.

Brosio has worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office here since 1962. He served as chief assistant U.S. attorney from 1968 to 1978. For a brief period in 1977 he was the interim U.S. attorney.

According to sources at the federal courthouse, the three leading candidates to succeed Bonner are Terry Bird of the West Los Angeles firm of Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert and Matz; Donald Smaltz, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, a large law firm based in Philadelphia, and Lourdes Baird, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. All three are former assistant U.S. attorneys.