David Toepfer of Howland was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio — becoming the first person from the Mahoning Valley in 117 years to hold the position.

Toepfer was among 107 nominees by President Donald Trump, a Republican, to be confirmed in one vote, 51-47, by the Senate along party lines. With two Republicans absent for the vote, all other GOP members voted Tuesday to confirm Trump’s nominees, including Toepfer, with all Democrats voting in opposition.

Senate Republicans voted Sept. 11 to impose what is referred to as the “nuclear option” on Trump’s sub-cabinet nominees, meaning it eliminated the required 60 votes supermajority normally needed to confirm in order to speed up the process. It also permits large groups of nominees to be confirmed at once.

Shortly after that vote, Senate Republicans confirmed 48 of Trump’s nominees.

The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio is the chief federal prosecutor for the 40 counties in the district.

When Trump nominated Toepfer in July, he said, “I’m very honored to be nominated, and I look forward to the confirmation process.”

A short time later, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Toepfer to the position while he waited for Senate confirmation.

When Bondi appointed him, Toepfer said: “It is the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of northern Ohio in this role. Our office will continue working with our federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to protect the public by aggressively enforcing the laws of the United States.”

Toepfer passed the bar exam in October 1997 when he was working as a law clerk for the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office. He stayed there until going to work for the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office in 1999, staying until 2008, when he was hired by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

While working for Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, he successfully served as co-counsel on the 2005-06 capital murder trial of Jermaine McKinny, who was sentenced to life in prison for killing two people, as well as on the 1999-2000 capital murder trials of Scott Burrows and Mark Worley, convicted of killing a Hubbard Township couple. Burrows and Worley were sentenced to life in prison.

Before the appointment, Toepfer served as supervisor of the Youngstown and Akron branches of the U.S. attorney’s offices. He was counsel on a number of high-profile federal cases, including those involving wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy and a $2.8 million food stamp fraud case involving 32 defendants.

Toepfer is the first Valley resident to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District since John J. Sullivan, who spent nine years on the job from 1899 to 1908.

Sullivan, who moved to Trumbull County when he was 12, was a former Trumbull County prosecutor and state senator before being appointed U.S. attorney by President William McKinley, a Niles native. Sullivan was reappointed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 and 1906.

Toepfer is the first confirmed U.S. attorney in the district to serve in the position since Justin Herdman, who was nominated by Trump and confirmed Aug. 3, 2017. He resigned Jan. 8, 2021, right before Biden, a Democrat, was sworn in as president.

U.S. attorneys typically resign when a new president from a different political party is elected.

Biden nominated Marisa T. Darden on Nov. 12, 2021, as U.S. attorney and she was confirmed April 27, 2022. But she withdrew her name from consideration on May 17, 2022, before taking office and returned to private practice.