Leanne Robbin, Financial Crimes Division Chief

Leanne Robbin graduated from Bowdoin College in 1980 and received her law degree, with honors, from Cornell Law School in 1983. She has been an assistant attorney general since 1983, having served in the General Government, Consumer, Natural Resources and Litigation Divisions, before becoming Chief of Financial Crimes and Civil Rights in 2001. Ms. Robbin?s first trial was in 1984 in an action for severance pay against Fort Halifax Packing Company, a case which subsequently went to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the constitutionality of Maine?s Severance Pay Law. Since that time, Ms. Robbin has criminally prosecuted environmental violators, violators of Maine?s Election Laws and the Clean Election Act, circulators forging signatures on referendum and nomination petitions, law enforcement officers abusing their authority, lawyers stealing from clients, claimants committing workers? compensation fraud and other white collar criminals.

Ms. Robbin?s successful trials include actions against: Harry Smith, the long-time operator of junkyards full of hazardous waste in Washington County; Carol Palesky, who altered over 19,000 signatures on Tax Cap referendum petitions; Jason Bouchard, a warden-pilot who used his State fuel credit card to obtain cash for his private aviation fuel business; and Anthony Casella, a con-man who received a 12-year sentence, one of the longest sentences ever imposed on a white-collar offender in Maine. Ms. Robbin has argued over 25 Law Court appeals, including homicide cases and two cases before the First Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as having briefed a number of cases decided without oral argument. She has litigated numerous cases under the Maine Civil Rights Act, including the case involving Brent Matthews, the man who threw a pig?s head into a Lewiston mosque. Ms. Robbin has also obtained criminal convictions and significant jail sentences against three individuals who violated injunctions entered under the Civil Rights Act.