Front Office

Joseph T. McNally, First Assistant United States Attorney

Joseph T. McNally is the First Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California, the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office outside of D.C., serving seven counties and nearly 20 million people.

Mr. McNally has served as an Assistant United States Attorney for over 15 years. Since joining the Office, Mr. McNally has prosecuted some of the most significant federal criminal cases in the US Attorney's Office ranging from fraud to violent and organized crime matters. Some of Mr. McNally's case work includes the ongoing Pacific Hospital investigation that has resulted in the convictions of 20 doctors and health care executives for their participation in a $50 million bribe and kickback scheme; trial convictions of a federal law enforcement officer and his wife for money laundering and narcotics trafficking; the conviction of a senior leader of the Mexican Mafia for racketeering following a multi-month trial; convictions of members of an international money laundering organization for laundering $60 million through Los Angeles-based jewelry businesses; and convictions of an Orange County lawyer and business partners for defrauding hundreds of homeowners out of millions of dollars in a loan modification telemarketing scheme. In 2016, Mr. McNally received the U.S. Department of Justice’s prestigious Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work convicting a Eurasian organized crime leader and others who were convicted at trial for operating a multi-million dollar bank fraud and identity theft scheme from state prison. Mr. McNally has tried 14 cases and argued before the Ninth Circuit a half dozen times.

Prior to serving as First Assistant United States Attorney, Mr. McNally served as Deputy Chief in the Violent and Organized Crime Section and the Orange County Office. In 2020, Mr. McNally served at the Department of Justice as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy where he advised senior DOJ leadership on criminal law policy. Mr. McNally has served as faculty member at the Department's National Advocacy Center where he has trained other prosecutors. Before joining the United States Attorney's Office, Mr. McNally clerked for the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen, United States District Judge, in the Northern District of California. Mr. McNally obtained his B.S. from Santa Clara University and his law degree from UC Berkeley.

Christina T. Shay, Executive Assistant United States Attorney

Christina Shay joined the office in 2011. She has served as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and the Chief Assistant United States Attorney. Prior to serving in the Front Office, Ms. Shay was the head of Complaints as a deputy chief in General Crimes. She was previously a member of the Violent and Organized Crimes Section. Ms. Shay received her A.B. from Harvard College and her J.D. from NYU School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable James Ware in the Northern District of California and for the Honorable Milan D. Smith on the Ninth Circuit. Before joining the United States Attorney’s Office, Ms. Shay was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz in New York.

Allison Westfahl Kong, Chief of Trials, Integrity, and Professionalism

Allison Westfahl Kong joined the office through the Attorney General’s Honors Program in 2012, after clerking for Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York and Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the Second Circuit. She joined the Criminal Appeals Section in 2014, where she argued 10 cases before the Ninth Circuit.

From July 2016 through June 2017, Ms. Westfahl Kong was on detail to the Department of Justice’s Fraud Section in Washington, D.C., where she conducted complex Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, including an investigation into the corrupt hiring practices of Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited that resulted in a $47 million criminal penalty, and advised trial teams in money laundering and securities fraud cases, including on issues of foreign law and extraterritoriality.

From July 2017 through July 2019, Ms. Westfahl Kong served as a deputy chief in the General Crimes Section. While serving as a deputy chief in General Crimes, in April 2019, she went to trial against the lead defendant of a massive, multi-jurisdictional loan fraud and identity theft scheme in United States v. Armstrong, which resulted in guilty verdicts on all 51 counts of conspiracy, financial institution fraud, money laundering, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft, and interstate transportation of stolen cars.

From August 2019 to July 2021, Ms. Westfahl Kong served as the Chief of the General Crimes Section, overseeing the largest section in the office and the onboarding of seven new AUSA classes. During her time in General Crimes management, she supervised over 75 AUSAs and over 30 jury trials. In 2020, she received the Federal Bar Association’s Younger Federal Lawyer Award.

Ms. Westfahl Kong graduated summa cum laude from Claremont McKenna College with a degree in mathematics and government, and graduated magna cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she served as the Senior Articles Editor of the Law Review.