Coreen Schnepf for Prosecutor
Coreen has no patience for crime. She has spent 20 years prosecuting the worst offenders. She's walked with victims as they recounted the worst times in their lives in order to hold criminals accountable. Coreen is running for Prosecutor because she cares about our community.
Meet Coreen Schnepf
Coreen Schnepf unapologetically stands up for public safety. Her career is devoted to sticking up for survivors and victims, holding violent offenders accountable, and keeping families safe. She is the Chief Criminal Deputy in the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office, where she leads the criminal division of approximately 200 employees.
Coreen knows hard work. Raised in Port Orchard as one of six kids, she started working at age 15. She worked her way through school and earned her Certified Nursing Assistant license at 17.
That led to four years caring for residents in a nursing home, including on a dementia unit. She learned how to stay calm in crisis, how to listen when people are scared or grieving, and how to treat families with patience, dignity, and compassion in the hardest moments of their lives.
Coreen earned her degree in psychology with honors, and then graduated magna cum laude from Seattle University School of Law. During law school, she interned at a prosecutor’s office where she found her calling: holding criminals accountable and standing up for victims and their families.
Over nearly two decades as a prosecutor, Coreen has taken on the toughest cases. The ones that keep families awake at night and change lives forever. She has fought for justice in homicide cases, including aggravated murder, and prosecuted criminals who use fear and violence to control the people closest to them.
She has also prosecuted human trafficking cases that demanded both resolve and care, where survivors had to relive the worst days of their lives in order to stop dangerous people from harming others.
Coreen is known for building cases that are both strong and survivor-centered. She helped create a specialized diversion program designed to support human trafficking survivors who need treatment, stability, and a real path forward, while keeping traffickers and violent offenders accountable.
Under Prosecutor Mary Robnett’s leadership, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office has been reformed and refocused on doing the work the right way, not playing politics. Mary Robnett is endorsing Coreen, she said, because “Coreen represents the next generation of leadership. She is an effective prosecutor and leader, and I know she will continue to make Pierce County a safer place to live by leading a digital transformation in the Prosecutor’s Office, which is now so critical to achieving justice.”
Coreen is a nationally-recognized leader in using digital evidence to prosecute criminals and protect the public. In a 2023 aggravated murder trial, Coreen helped secure a conviction against a defendant who stalked and murdered his estranged girlfriend. The case turned on complex digital evidence, the kind of modern proof that increasingly decides whether dangerous offenders are held accountable.
As Prosecutor, Coreen will move the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office forward into this new age to continue holding criminals accountable to keep us safe while building on a culture where earning public trust is more important than chasing headlines or playing political games.
Coreen and her husband Mike, a law enforcement officer, are raising their four children in Tacoma.