Washington ― The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 20-2 Thursday to advance the nomination of veteran prosecutor Timothy VerHey to be U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan.
Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut voted no.
VerHey, 64, of Middleville was appointed to be interim U.S. attorney in July 2025. He was nominated in April by President Donald Trump to keep the job, which serves as the chief federal prosecutor, supervising a staff of about 70 for the district that covers Michigan’s western Lower Peninsula and all of the Upper Peninsula.
VerHey has been with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Grand Rapids for over 35 years, starting in 1990, handling criminal cases including international fraud, domestic terrorism, capital murder, drug and child sex offenses, and violent crimes, according to his official bio. He tried 74 cases to verdict in that time, with all but two before a jury.
One of his prominent cases described in documents submitted to the panel was the prosecution of Marvin Gabrion, who in 2002 was convicted of the 1997 murder of Rachel Timmerman.
She had disappeared from Newaygo County after claiming Gabrion raped her, and her body was later found in a nearby lake on national forest land. Gabrion’s death sentence was commuted in 2024 by outgoing President Joe Biden to life in prison without parole.
In 2013, VerHey led the prosecution of six members of a street gang called the Block Burners in Lansing who had broken into the home of a paraplegic man to rob him of his medical marijuana and beat him to the point that his legs had to be amputated. In another incident, gang members kidnapped and later fatally shot a 19-year-old girl in an effort to find the site of her boyfriend’s marijuana growing operation.
VerHey has also taken on public corruption cases, including the 1994 embezzlement of $300,000 from the Battle Creek VA hospital by its chief financial officer, and the 2001 case of a state official who used his position to extort bribes from computer vendors in the form of cash and sexual favors.
He was also involved in a 1995 case centered on a series of arsons committed by the Animal Liberation Front, a group opposed to animal research and the $100 million Cybernet fraud case involving a “phony” data storage business in 2004. He also led prosecutions of those in the district who defrauded financial institutions in the subprime mortgage crisis.
VerHey graduated from Centre College of Kentucky in 1984 and the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1987, after which he clerked for Judge Harry W. Wellford at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Memphis.
VerHey spent two years at the Grand Rapids law firm of Warner, Norcross & Judd focused on civil litigation, regulatory issues, corporate mergers and acquisitions and appellate cases before signing on with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1990.
His other roles include serving as an adjunct professor at Ferris State University and Grand Valley State University and as chair of the Thornapple Township Zoning Board of Appeals for nearly 18 years, according to a questionnaire he filled out for the Judiciary Committee.
In 2007, he was inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers and he’s also a member of the Federalist Society, the Hillman Trial Advocacy Program and is an Eagle Scout, according to the questionnaire.
mburke@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Senate panel advances VerHey pick to be top prosecutor in west Michigan
Reporting by Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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