Eli A. Alcaraz is a seasoned trial and appellate attorney and former supervisory federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the nation’s largest federal district. During his six and a half years as a prosecutor, he led or co-led 10 jury trials to verdict across a wide range of areas, including fraud, civil rights, violent crime, human smuggling, and other serious felonies. As a Deputy Chief in the Riverside Branch Office, he supervised over a dozen prosecutors tasked with representing the United States in federal court and who brought prosecutions across Southern California. Eli was also a member of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, where he investigated quid pro quo exchanges with public officials and police misconduct.

For his exceptional work on some of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s most significant trial victories, in 2022, Eli received ICE Office of Professional Responsibility’s Associate Director’s Award for Trial Team of the Year, a national award, and, in 2024, he received the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Director’s Award, the highest national award given by that agency. He also received an Eagle Award in 2024 from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for his work on drug trafficking prosecutions and Director’s Certificates from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2021 and 2025 for his work on fraud prosecutions. Eli has a diverse portfolio of experiences managing investigations and prosecutions with federal and state law enforcement agencies into public corruption; wire, mail, and healthcare fraud; false statements in bankruptcy and tax filings; transnational organized crime; money laundering; and drug, gun, and human trafficking.

Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, for approximately four years, Eli worked at two international law firms and in a highly respected boutique litigation law firm in Los Angeles. In those roles, concerning civil litigation, Eli represented plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil litigation in state and federal court. He also defended individuals facing white collar federal criminal charges in the Central District of California and the Southern District of New York, as well as against the SEC in enforcement actions.

From 2012 to 2013, Eli clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcón, and from 2014 to 2015, he clerked on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for the Honorable Andrew J. Guilford.

Eli earned his law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 2012, where he was one of a handful of students who were simultaneously on the UCLA Law Review Board and UCLA Moot Court Honors Program Board. During law school, he also started from scratch the UCLA School of Law Cybercrimes Moot Court Competition, a national moot court competition focused on cutting edge issues at the intersection of law and emerging technology. Eli received a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and a Minor in Spanish from Stanford University in 2008, where he was also a member of Stanford’s NCAA Division 1 Men’s Gymnastics Team for four years.