Gene is Counsel in Troutman Pepper’s Regulatory Investigations, Strategy + Enforcement (RISE) practice group, where he assists clients in AI, cybersecurity, and privacy matters, including compliance, incident response, and regulatory investigations and litigation. Gene formerly served as Senior Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Computer Crime Section in the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia and as Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for 20 years.
As a regulator, he reviewed thousands of data breach incidents and investigated hundreds of cybersecurity, privacy, and consumer protection violations, including as part of multistate Attorneys General teams. He led reform of Virginia’s privacy and computer crime laws, having drafted and shepherded dozens of successful bills involving data breach notification, electronic records, identity theft, computer trespass and child exploitation statutes, among others. In his supervisory capacities, he led the professional development of attorneys and computer forensic examiners, overseeing over 1,000 prosecutions and computer forensic investigations for complex criminal cases in Virginia.
Gene received his J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law, and his B.A., magna cum laude, from James Madison University.