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Howard Winfield Cox died peacefully on July 28, 2025, in Frederick, Maryland. A highly regarded federal attorney, investigator, educator and author, Howard was 75. His cause of death was a rare genetic disease, myelofibrosis.
At the start of his wide-ranging 40-year career in the federal government, Howard pursued fraud, waste and abuse cases tied to government contracts and services. As a young staff counsel on the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he helped co-author the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act. Approved in 1986, the Act was pivotal in identifying and preventing federal contractor and service provider fraud and waste.
Howard served as a criminal investigator, prosecutor and intelligence officer across a broad array of federal offices. He retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations where he supervised criminal, civil and administrative investigations. He earned the CIA Intelligence Medal of Merit in recognition of his work.