District Attorney Coty Wamp on Tuesday announced five new leadership positions in the office of the District Attorney. The new positions include executive assistant district attorney, deputy district attorney, gang and violent crime prosecutor, chief homicide prosecutor and child sex abuse prosecutor.
“These prosecutors reflect my priorities,” said DA Wamp, who took office on Sept. 1. “To say I am proud of my office would be an understatement.
We worked hard in September to fill positions with exceptionally qualified individuals who share in my mission to make our county safer. I’m grateful to be able to lead the charge, but even more grateful for the people who are willing to work alongside me.”
Since taking office, MS. Wamp has hired 15 new employees, including nine new attorneys.
The new leadership team includes:
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Executive Assistant District Attorney Kevin L. Loper, who brings experience in both leadership and jury trial litigation. Loper has 14 years as a lawyer and most recently worked at the Hamilton County Public Defender’s Office as a Supervising Attorney. At the Public Defender’s Office, Loper managed his own caseload, as well as a team of lawyers and office staff. Loper is an experienced trial lawyer, having handled countless criminal matters, including trials in first degree murder cases. Prior to working at the Public Defender’s Office, Loper, a graduate of the University of Alabama, worked at the firm of Moore, Ingram, Johnson & Steele in Knoxville. He moved to Chattanooga in 2009, where he worked locally at Cavett & Abbott in the areas of criminal defense and property law.
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Deputy Assistant District Attorney Steven Moore. A graduate of Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in 1990, Moore began his career in the district attorney’s office in Jefferson County, Alabama. Moore then began his criminal defense practice and has spent the last 30 years practicing in both federal and state courts across the country, with a primary practice in East Tennessee and North Georgia. His practice has included multiple death penalty cases, murders, major drug conspiracies, gang offenses and white-collar crimes. Moore has tried approximately 200 jury trials. As a defense attorney, Moore was an AV top rated lawyer by Martindale Hubbell peer review board and has appeared on the Mid-South Super Lawyers list for three straight years.
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Gang and Violent Crime Prosecutor Austin Scofield. A graduate of UTC (2004) and the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law (2011), Scofield began his career in 2011 with the Shelby County District Attorney's Office in Memphis as an Assistant District Attorney and has prosecuted cases in Memphis for more than 10 years. For the last six years, Scofield has primarily prosecuted gang-related crimes of violence including first-degree murders, a mass shooting, attempted murders, aggravated robberies and carjackings as part of the Gang Unit. During this time, he also worked closely with the Shelby County Multi-Agency Gang Unit to conduct long-term investigations into gangs engaged in group violence and narcotics trafficking through the use of wiretaps, including two successful homicide wiretaps. Scofield’s experience includes complex litigation for widely reported cases like the murders of NBA player (and Memphis hometown hero) Lorenzen Wright, the rapper Adolph Thornton AKA Young Dolph, and, most recently, the abducted runner, teacher and mother Eliza Fletcher. Prior to attending law school, Scofield worked as a probation officer in Grundy and Marion counties.
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Chief Homicide Prosecutor Michael Dowd. A graduate of Cal-State University Long Beach (1992) and from the University of Houston Law Center (1995), Dowd worked for 18 months as a prosecutor with the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office. He also spent 22 years with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office as a Deputy District Attorney and Supervising Deputy District Attorney. He was the Chief Prosecutor for the City of Pasadena for five years. As a district attorney, Dowd was a major crimes prosecutor who tried 131 cases, which included 40 murder cases, three of those were capital cases. During that time, he also supervised the Juvenile Division, the Gang Unit and the Major Crimes Unit. As Chief Prosecutor, Dowd instituted a new approach within the City Prosecutor’s Office that firmly established that the foremost duty of the office was to protect the people of Pasadena. This approach focused on the need for accountability, responsibility and safety for the public while at the same time promoting community-based efforts to stem crime, especially violent crime, in the City of Pasadena. He was a Senior Adjunct Professor at the University of La Verne for 20 years and a Professor of Law at three law schools for 13 years. He resides in Jasper with his wife, Margo, and his daughter, Isabella.
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Child Sex Abuse Prosecutor Stephani Brown. Brown, a native of Cleveland, TN, attended Lee University for her undergraduate education followed by Baylor Law School in Waco TX. Brown previously served as an Assistant District Attorney in Collin County, TX, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, where she led a section of Collin County’s Domestic Violence Unit and successfully tried cases ranging from Driving Under the Influence to Continuous Sexual Assault of a Child. Brown and her family relocated back to Tennessee in 2022.
“This group of lawyers will make a dramatic difference in the way the District Attorney’s office operates,” said DA Wamp. “I am confident the public will see positive results as we focus solely on the safety of the citizens of Hamilton County.”