Rick Romley
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Rick Romley (Richard M. Romley) (born 1949), a Republican, was the County Attorney for Maricopa County, Arizona from 1989 to 2004.
[edit] Early life
Romley is a native of Tucson, Arizona. He joined the Marines in 1968 and fought in the Vietnam War as a squad leader. He received numerous commendations for his service in that war, including the Purple heart medal.[citation needed] He was severely wounded by a land mine, losing both legs above the knee and suffering other injuries.[1] Following the war, Romley went to Arizona State University in Tempe as a business management student, and graduated in 1974. He later attended ASU's law school and attained his Juris Doctor degree in 1981.
[edit] Career highlights
In 1989, Romley was elected county attorney (the equivalent of a district attorney) of Maricopa County, currently the fourth most populous in the United States, with approximately 3.4 million people. The office, the fifth largest in the country, is responsible for more than 40,000 cases a year. One of his highest publicized cases was when he was the prosecutor of the infamous AzScam scandal of the early 1990s, the largest public corruption scandal in Arizona history.[citation needed] In 2002, he initiated an investigation of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix and their part in the pedophile priest scandals, that led to an admission of wrongdoing by the then Bishop Thomas O'Brien.
In 2001, he received the Disabled American Veterans' (DAV) Outstanding Disabled Veteran of the Year.[2]
After leaving the county attorney's post, Romley served as a special advisor to the Arizona Attorney General for six months.[3] In August 2007, he became a personal adviser to James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in Washington, D.C.[3]
