Jessica Aber, a former US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia who was found dead in her Virginia home Saturday morning according to multiple reports.
The 43-year-old Aber, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, had been in charge of some of the biggest cases targeting leaks in the CIA and Russian nationals carrying out fraud in America.
Jessica Aber, U.S. Attorney for Virginia’s Eastern District, has been found dead at 43 in Alexandria. No foul play is suspected, officials say. https://t.co/Z1U89rvpxN
— WUSA9 (@wusa9) March 23, 2025
According to The New York Post, just prior to her resignation in January when President Donald Trump took office, Aber secured one of her biggest wins in court when ex-CIA analyst Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to leaking top secret documents about Israel’s plan to strike Iran last year.
Officials are now investigating Aber’s cause of death after the decorated attorney was discovered unresponsive at her home by Alexandria Police Department officers just before 9:20 a.m. Saturday morning.
Aber was leading a number of high-profile legal cases pertaining to sensitive information.
Aber’s major case against Rahman also included posting documents detailing Israel’s October strike on Telegram.
The leak forced Israel to hold off on the retaliatory attack against Tehran.
At the time, Aber slammed Rahman’s actions as a “violation of his oath, his responsibility, and the law,” as she said the leak “placed lives at risk, undermined U.S. foreign relations, and compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.”
Aber also led the case against Eleview International Inc., a Virginia-based company whose two senior executives were accused of running “three different schemes to illegally transship sensitive American technology to Russia,” according to the Department of Justice records.
Executives Oleg Nayandin, 54, and Vitaliy Borisenko, 39, were accused in November of illegally shipping out more than $6 million worth of goods, including telecommunications equipment, to Russia through ports in Turkey, Finland and Kazakhstan as a means to bypass US sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
The case came just two months after Aber secured indictments against two Russian nationals accused of fraud and money laundering.
Sergey Ivanov and Timur Shakhmametov, who had a $10 million reward for their arrests, were allegedly behind one the largest money laundering operations online that “catered to major cybercrime marketplaces and ransomware groups, and to prolific hackers responsible for some of the largest data breaches targeting critical U.S. financial infrastructure,” according to the Secret Service.
Along with taking on the fraud and leak cases, Aber was also involved in the Department of Justice’s indictment against four Russian soldiers who allegedly committed war crimes against an American living in Ukraine.
The victim, who was not identified, was kidnapped from his home in the Kherson region and savagely beaten, tortured and subjected to a mock execution, according to the records.
The defendants were identified as commanding officers Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, 45, and Dmitry Budnik, and two lower-level soldiers identified in the indictment only by their first names, Valerii and Nazar.
“We are proud to be at the forefront of the Justice Department’s effort to hold perpetrators of war crimes violations accountable in Ukraine and will continue to pursue them,” Aber said at the time.
Alexandria authorities said Saturday Aber’s cause and manner of death would be determined by the medical examiner.
An Aber family friend told NBC News that police believe she died due to a longstanding medical issue.
Two ex-senior Justice Department officials with knowledge of the matter also told the outlet that investigators have found no evidence to suggest foul play.
This is an on-going story. Check back for further updates.