Print edition: 
After the Senate confirmed Barry Grissom as U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas, he called his mother to tell her the news that the president of the United States had appointed her son.
Clara Grissom told him how proud she was. Then she paused.
“And what does a U.S. attorney do again?” he remembered her asking.
As Grissom traveled across the state as the chief federal law enforcement officer in Kansas, he found others asking the same question: including police and local sheriffs in rural communities.
“I’ve been blown away by how many people have told me, ‘This is the first time I’ve met the U.S. attorney,’ ” Grissom said.
More prosecutions
When Grissom took over the office 16 months ago, the odometer on his government-issued Pontiac read 4,600 miles. Last week, he passed 29,000.
Criminal prosecutions at the federal courthouse in Wichita, meanwhile, have increased 63 percent..
“We’re doing more of the routine cases that some prosecutors would call the bread-and-butter cases,” said Brent Anderson, coordinator for the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wichita. “The judges are starting to comment on it, because they’re seeing an increase in caseloads.”
Those cases involve prosecutions of gun offenses for career criminals. People convicted of felonies are not allowed to carry firearms, but some still do. They continue to commit crimes. But in federal court, a felon in possession of firearm can face 10 years’ prison time and fines of up to $250,000, compared to less than two years under state law.
Police pleased with Grissom’s approach
In September, the federal indictment of more than 40 defendants on weapons charges capped a year-long investigation by the Wichita Police Department, Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Police seized 250 guns and, in some cases, stashes of drugs.
At a recent meeting with Grissom, Wichita police credited that operation with last year’s decline in gang-related crimes. Most of those arrested were eventually linked to the Bloods street gang.
“It was a real good sock in the gut for them,” Deputy Chief Tom Stolz said.
Stolz said he was impressed with the way Grissom and assistant prosecutor Deb Barnett dealt with the cases police brought to them.
“This is the first time ever I’ve had nothing negative to say about the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Stolz told Grissom during their meeting.
“We’ve historically had really good relations with the U.S. attorneys, but through the years they’re not always as aggressive as we’d like them to be,” Stolz said later. “Since Barry has taken over they have proactively taken cases, called meetings. He’s taken it to another level.”
Stolz and his top captains also told Grissom they would be bringing more cases to his office this year, including those involving the sex trafficking of children, weapons violations and robberies.
Federal penalties stiffer
Currently, Stoltz said police and the FBI are looking for a group they call the “duct tape robbers,” who have hit several local businesses. They leave their victims bound with duct tape. Their latest heist: a $100,000 haul from a credit union.
“When we have any serial robbers, we generally contact the FBI,” Stolz said. “Once they hit a financial institution, that’s the trigger that brings in federal authorities, such as the U.S. Attorney’s Office. We like the enhanced penalties the feds offer on those cases.”
Crimes against banks and credit unions are federal cases. So are crimes against businesses engaged in interstate commerce, such as a convenience store or restaurant that buys items from out-of-state distributors.
Earlier this month, James L. Simmons, Jr., 53, of Wichita received more than 15 years in federal prison for the armed robberies of five small businesses, including a gas station and convenience store. Simmons took between $50 and $400 in each robbery. U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren, Grissom’s predecessor as U.S. attorney, sentenced Simmons to 188 months. There is no parole from federal prison.
Grissom knew about bank robbers, and people who knock off QuikTrips. He wasn’t prepared for those who deal in child pornography, which he has seen traded from Belgium to central Kansas.
The videos are most haunting, he said.
“The sound a little person 2 or 3 years old makes when he or she is being raped is a sound that just won’t ever leave you,” Grissom said.
He issued directives to cut no deals.
“If the facts and law support our position, (defendants) can either plead as charged or they can go to court and convince a jury that there’s nothing wrong with what they were doing,” Grissom said.
No political ambitions
Before being appointed as U.S. attorney, Grissom tried civil cases in a solo practice. He realizes he’s a political appointee but he said he harbors no ambitions of cashing in after his job ends with Obama’s presidency.
“There’s no one as genuine as this guy, and his lack of self-interest and political ambitions make him truly unique,” said Mike Warner, Grissom’s first assistant, who has worked as a career prosecutor in state and federal courts. “He truly has made the office an instrument of public policy.”
So Grissom continues to drive across the state, asking police in Dodge City to send him cases like that of a convicted felon caught with an assault rifle in his trunk. He’s held training sessions for prosecutors, social workers and health care professionals on prescription drug addiction, human trafficking, hate crimes and the rights of the disabled. Grissom said he hopes such forums will help local authorities decide when to bring a case to his prosecutors for federal consideration.
“I can do one of two things,” he said. “I can hide out in my office and let the time run and when it’s over go out and try to find a big-time job in some law firm that’s going to pay me a lot more money that I’m worth, just because I’m a former U.S. attorney. Or I can say I’ve got a finite time and I can work to try and do something that furthers the mission of this office.”
Grissom attended a community dinner at the Islamic Society of Wichita during Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan. Grissom said he wanted Muslims to know they have a friend in a government that too often is portrayed as being suspicious of their beliefs.
Today, when the U.S. Attorney’s Office is closed for Martin Luther King Day, Grissom and his wife Renee plan to drive from Kansas City to Wichita to join volunteers helping to prepare for the opening of a resource center for homeless teenagers — the most likely targets of sex trafficking.
“I don’t want to waste a day,” Grissom said. “I don’t want to look back when this incredible experience is over and say, ‘Gee, I wish I would have done that.’ ”
