Gordon C. Rhea, Esq. was sworn in as attorney general of the Virgin Islands Justice Department on St. Croix Friday by Virgin Islands Supreme Court Justice Harold W.L. Willocks, Government House announced.
Rhea has served in various legal roles, including as a federal prosecutor, a local prosecutor in the Virgin Islands, a defense attorney, a major civil practitioner, and an appellate lawyer. He has been a member of the Virgin Islands Bar Association for over 40 years. In 2023, the Virgin Islands Bar Association awarded him its highest honor, the Winston Hodge Award, according to the press release.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. and Lt. Gov. Tregenza A. Roach, Esq. praised Rhea’s experience as a prosecutor and defense attorney:
“I value having the blessing of having a person that had the experience on both the prosecution side and the defense side that has the balance of mind in order to run a fair Attorney General’s Office and the intelligence that will add to our Department of Justice for years to come,” Bryan said.
After Rhea took the oath of office and had the Golden Emblem pin affixed to his lapel by Bryan, he thanked the governor, the lieutenant governor, and everyone in attendance, including members of the governor’s executive staff, the cabinet, the Virgin Islands Legislature, and the Justice Department, the press release stated.
Calling the Justice Department “highly underrated,” Rhea has pledged to help improve the office itself. “I’d like to get the Department of Justice up to full strength,” he said. “We’re missing a lot of people that we need, and I’d like to bring more in. I’d like to recruit more attorneys, and I’d like to bring in more local attorneys, attorneys from the Virgin Islands who know these islands. That’s a big part of my agenda. I’m also interested in modernizing the office, bringing in a modern case management system.”
Rhea grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and attended Indiana University, where he received a bachelor’s degree with honors in history. He then entered graduate school at Harvard University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and earned a master’s degree. Afterward, he received Peace Corps training on St. Croix in the summer of 1968 and joined the Peace Corps Africa program, the release stated.
Returning to the United States in early 1970, he worked for a year as a carpenter, then attended Stanford University Law School, where he received his law degree in 1974. He began his legal career in Los Angeles, defending complex criminal cases, and then moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities. Rhea became the Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, where he worked for more than five years and served as the office’s deputy director of Supreme Court Operations, overseeing all felony prosecutions in the District of Columbia, and as Executive Assistant United States Attorney, it said.
In 1981, he was appointed as the United States Attorney in the Virgin Islands. In 1982, Rhea and Attorney Thomas Alkin founded “Alkin and Rhea,” a prominent plaintiff’s firm on St. Croix, it said.
“The Virgin Islands has been a big part of my life,” Rhea said. “As a matter of fact, it’s been a big part of my life for more than half of my life.” Rhea said he is committed to helping people and lifting them up.
“One of the worst things I can imagine is to be a young person and have a felony conviction that you carry for life that prevents you from ever getting a good job. I’m not saying some people don’t deserve that, and the ones that do, I’m going to do everything I can do to see that they get it. But there’s a lot that are correctable, that are corrigible. And there I think we need to really work on and develop our various programs for drug treatment, alcohol treatment, anger management, counseling – all of those things,” Rhea said.
Rhea and his wife Catherine were married on St. Croix in 1968. They have two sons, Campbell and Carter, the release stated.
