FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS – Ali M. Summers has been named the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. As Acting U.S. Attorney, she is the chief federal law enforcement official in the Southern District of Illinois.
Acting United States Attorney Ali Summers is a career prosecutor who became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2012. She has prosecuted a wide variety of federal crimes for the District to include murder, armed robbery, carjacking, violent gun offenses, drug trafficking, and crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children.
She has served the office as Criminal Chief since July 2018 and most recently as First Assistant. She also served as Chief of the Violent Crime Unit from July 2016 to September 2023.
Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Acting U.S. Attorney Summers was a law clerk to the Honorable David R. Herndon in the Southern District of Illinois. Upon completion of her two-year term judicial clerkship, she worked as a state court prosecutor in St. Clair and Madison County, Illinois for 10 years where she prosecuted primarily homicides and child sexual abuse cases.
Acting U.S. Attorney Summers received her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois in 1996 and a Master of Social Work from the University of Illinois in 1999. She graduated from the Southern Illinois University School of Law in 2000.
