Three Assistant U. S. Attorneys Promoted

FARGO- U. S. Attorney Christopher C. Myers announced that on November 1, 2015, three Assistant U. S. Attorneys have been promoted to leadership roles within the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Keith Reisenauer has been promoted to First Assistant U. S. Attorney (FAUSA) and is a graduate of Mandan High School (1975) and the University of North Dakota (1979). He also attended the University of North Dakota Law School and earned his law degree in 1982.

Reisenauer has been with the United States Attorney’s Office since 1991. He was the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Coordinator and prosecutor for the District of North Dakota for approximately 12 years and has been the Criminal Supervisor in the Fargo Office since 2008. Prior to becoming an Assistant United States Attorney, Reisenauer was with the Cass County States Attorney’s Office as an Assistant States Attorney from 1983-1991.

Rick Volk has been promoted to Senior Litigation Counsel and is a graduate of Rugby High School (1984) and Valley City State University (1988). He earned his law degree from the University of North Dakota School of Law in 1991.

Volk joined the United States Attorney’s Office in 2002 after over 9 years prosecuting cases at the Burleigh County State’s Attorney’s Office in Bismarck. Throughout his employment with the United States Attorney’s Office, Volk has been assigned to prosecution of violent crime and drug trafficking crimes in Indian country, serving as the primary point of contact for the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation for several years. He also serves as Special Counsel to the United States Attorney for Indian country and is the District Election Officer for the Office. In 2015, Volk was assigned to the Bakken Strike Force and designated to lead the federal prosecution of organized criminal activity in the northwest quadrant of the State of North Dakota and also serves as the supervisor of the Bakken Strike Force attorneys. Volk will continue in his role as the Strike Force supervisor as well as the new duties of Senior Litigation Counsel.

Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl, a native of Devils Lake, ND, and graduate of the University of North Dakota School of Law, Class of 2000, has been promoted to Criminal Supervisor for the Fargo Office. Puhl has served as the North Dakota Coordinator for Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a Department of Justice initiative aimed at combating the sexual exploitation of children, for the past ten years. As the PSC coordinator, Puhl prosecutes the technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children to include child prostitution, child pornography, sexual extortion, as well as other child exploitation crimes. She has also worked very hard to obtain restitution for victims of child pornography offenses.

In addition to prosecuting the child exploitation cases, Puhl serves as the Human Trafficking Coordinator for the United States Attorney’s Office. Recently, she partnered with a nongovernmental organization in creating a response team of law enforcement and service providers to address the human trafficking epidemic in North Dakota. The goal of the response team is to rescue human trafficking victims and better investigate and prosecute their traffickers. Prior to joining the United States Attorney’s Office in 2002, Puhl worked in private practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in 2000 she clerked for The Honorable Mary Muehlen Maring at the North Dakota Supreme Court.