Biography

Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett represents the at large district of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the United States House of Representatives. She is an African-Caribbean attorney who has practiced law in New York, Washington D.C.  and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Plaskett is best known for her understanding of economic development and public-private partnerships for growing the economy of developing areas. She is an active community advocate in the Virgin Islands.

Plaskett was born, May 13, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents are both natives of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands and migrated to New York during in 1950s. Her father is a retired New York City police officer and her mother worked as clerk in the court system. The Plaskett’s residence was often home to students moving from the Virgin Islands to Brooklyn.

Plaskett began her grade school education at Brooklyn Friends and Grace Lutheran elementary schools and continued her education at Choate Rosemary Hall.

At Choate, she was a varsity athlete and served as class president for several years.  Plaskett also spent a term in France.  She often credits Choate for awakening her commitment to public service and deep sense of responsibility to others.

Plaskett attended Georgetown University under the early decision program and later received a degree in History and Diplomacy from the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service. While at Georgetown, Plaskett ran for student government under the progressive student ticket and was very active in the anti-apartheid movement.  As a student, she spoke on behalf of universities in the D.C. area at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Plaskett attended law school at night while she worked full time during the day with the lobbying arm of the American Medical Association and then with the law firm, Jones Day. At the time of graduation, she had three sons under the age of five.

After graduating law school, Plaskett worked as an Assistant District Attorney in the Bronx, New York.  She prosecuted several hundred cases and was eventually assigned to the Narcotics Bureau.  She then worked as a consultant and Legal Counsel focused on internal corporate investigations and strategy for the Mitchel Madison Group.

Plaskett later moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as counsel on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics Committee) in the United States House of Representatives. Plaskett left the Ethics Committee after being asked by mentor and fellow trustee at Choate, Robert McCallum (later Ambassador to Australia), to work at the United States Justice Department.

At the Justice Department, Plaskett served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division, and also as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Torts Branch in the Civil Division.  She later joined the staff of Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, primarily working on the Justice Honors program and an initiative to increase the number of minority and women attorneys at the Justice Department. She also worked on the Terrorism Litigation Task Force and the September 11th Victims’ Compensation Fund.  She was also one of the lead attorneys on US v. Phillip Morris.

Plaskett left government to serve as Deputy General Counsel at United Health Group, where she worked in the Medicaid/Medicare division.  She then relocated full time to her ancestral home of the United States Virgin Islands and worked in the private sector and then with the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority (VIEDA). At VIEDA, she worked on tax incentive programs and public-private partnerships as a means to bring economic growth to the development of the territory.