Stephen Kaufman

Stephen R. Kaufman is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.  He teaches courses entitled White Collar Crime, Functions and Duties of the Prosecutor, and Evidence.

Professor Kaufman is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.  He served as the Acting United States Attorney from March to November 2021, after serving as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney from 2018 to 2021.  He held the position of Chief of the Criminal Division in the United States Attorney’s Office from 2012 to 2017.

In his 30 years as a federal prosecutor, Professor Kaufman handled a wide variety of violent crime, narcotics, child exploitation and white collar cases.  Notable cases include the successful eight week trial of the Pittsburgh La Cosa Nostra organized crime family on RICO charges, the prosecution of the distributors of China White, a deadly synthetic form of heroin which caused the overdose deaths of 17 individuals in 1988, the prosecution of Michael Carlow, owner of Pittsburgh Brewing and Clark Candy, for perpetrating a $31 million dollar check kiting scheme against PNC Bank, and obtaining the conviction of and an 11 year prison sentence for Dr. Oliver Herndon, a physician who was the most prolific illegal distributor of oxycodone pills in the Pittsburgh area prior to his arrest.  Professor Kaufman’s prosecution of Robert Stevens for illegally distributing animal fighting videos was appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

He joined the United States Attorney's Office in 1988, after working as a law clerk for United States District Judge Donald E. Ziegler.  He also engaged in the private practice of law with former United States Attorney Fred Thieman at the law firms of Titus & McConomy and Thieman & Kaufman.  Professor Kaufman initially joined the faculty of the Duquesne Kline School of Law in 2022 as an Adjunct Professor.

• J.D., Harvard Law School, cum laude, 1984
• B.S., Allegheny College, summa cum laude, 1981