Stewart Michael Young

Stewart M. Young is an Assistant United States Attorney and the Training Officer at the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah. While maintaining a full caseload, he also trains federal prosecutors at the National Advocacy Center in South Carolina, along with lecturing at various CLEs and trainings around the state and region for both attorneys and law enforcement agents. 

From July 2017 to February 2020, Stew served as the Senior Litigation Counsel in the District of Utah. As Senior Litigation Counsel, he trained criminal AUSAs and federal/task force agents in the District of Utah, and provided counsel to the U.S. Attorney on violent street gangs and crime reduction initiatives. He also designed and implemented several large-scale programs at the U.S. Attorney’s direction targeting violent street gangs and Mexican cartels.     

Stew joined the Utah USAO in 2012, after serving as a tenure-track law professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law for several years. While at the University of Wyoming, Stew ran the Prosecution Assistance Program, which resulted in his 3L students briefing and arguing more than twenty Wyoming Supreme Court appeals (and several briefed and argued by him personally). He has taught law school classes on Criminal Procedure, Criminal Adjudication, Border Crimes, and Japanese Law. He has published in numerous law reviews and periodicals, on subjects ranging from firearms trafficking, cybercrime, and gang crime. 

Previously, Stew served as a federal prosecutor through the Attorney General’s Honors Program in the Southern District of California (San Diego) for four years. As an Assistant United States Attorney in both Utah and San Diego, he has been lead or co-counsel on twenty felony jury trials, twenty-two appellate briefs, and eight appellate arguments (in both the Ninth and Tenth Circuits).  As an AUSA in Utah, Stew has investigated and prosecuted bribery, public corruption, mail/wire fraud, Ponzi schemes, criminal tax violations, money laundering, sale of unregistered securities, defense procurement fraud, bankruptcy fraud, biological hoax violations, as well as narcotics trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise (CCE). He is responsible for numerous large-scale investigations, often with multiple defendants relating to complex white collar and securities violations, narcotics trafficking or violent street gang-affiliated conspiracies. 

Prior to beginning his career as a prosecutor, Stew served successive judicial clerkships on the Ninth Circuit (for Judge Jay Bybee in Las Vegas) and on the District of Utah (for Judge Paul Cassell). 

For his work as a federal prosecutor, Stew has received numerous honors, including the EOUSA Director’s Award from the Department of Justice, the DEA Administrator's Award, two Frederic Milton Thrasher Awards from the National Gang Crime Research Center, three Sheriff’s Stars from the Salt Lake County Unified Police Department, two Project Director’s Award from the Salt Lake Area Metro Gang Unit, four Commendations from the Utah Narcotics Officers' Association, and numerous awards from the United States Attorney's Office.  

Stew is a graduate of Stanford Law School, with a master’s degree in International Relations from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, and an undergraduate degree from Princeton University.