Reply #46: Patrick J. Fitzgerald

[SoCalDem]

Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago
2002 Bill of Rights in Action Benefit
Patrick J. Fitzgerald


PATRICK J. FITZGERALD began serving as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois on September 1, 2001. He was initially appointed on an interim basis by Attorney General John Ashcroft, succeeding former U.S. Attorney Scott R. Lassar. Subsequently, he was nominated by President George W. Bush. The United States Senate confirmed his nomination by unanimous consent on October 23, 2001, and President Bush signed his commission on October 29, 2001.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Fitzgerald served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the United States Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York for thirteen years. He has served as Chief of the Organized Crime-Terrorism Unit since December 1995, in addition to holding other supervisory positions during his tenure in that office.

As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Fitzgerald is the district's top federal law enforcement official. He manages a staff of 250, including 137 Assistant U.S. Attorneys who handle civil litigation, criminal investigations and prosecutions involving public corruption, narcotics trafficking, violent crime, and white-collar fraud.

In New York, Mr. Fitzgerald participated in the prosecution of United States v. Usama Bin Laden, et al., in which 23 defendants were charged with various offenses, including conspiracy to murder United States nationals overseas and the August 1998 bombings of the Untied States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Seven defendants are in custody in the United States; three defendants are in custody in the United Kingdom; and thirteen defendants are fugitives. Four defendants went on trial in January 2001 in New York, and a jury returned guilty verdicts against all four on May 29, 0201. All four were sentenced to life in prison on October 18, 2001.

Mr. Fitzgerald also participated in the trial of United States v. Omar Adbel Rahman, et al., a nine-month trial in 1995 of twelve defendants who participated in a seditious conspiracy that involved the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and a spring 1993 plot to bomb the United Nations, the FBI Building in New York, and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, as well as a conspiracy to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. He also supervised the case of United States v. Ramzi Yousef, et al., the 1996 prosecution of three defendants who participated in a conspiracy in the Philippines in late 1994 and early 1995 to detonate bombs simultaneously on twelve American airliners. In 1993, Mr. Fitzgerald participated in the six-month trial of United States v. John Gambino, et al., the prosecution of a Gambino crime family capo and his crew for narcotics trafficking, murder, racketeering, jury tampering, and other charges.

Among Mr. Fitzgerald's awards and honors are the Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service in 1996 and the Stimson Medal from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1997. In New York, Mr. Fitzgerald's other supervisory posts were National Security Coordinator from February 1996 to January 1999 and Chief of the Narcotics Unit from January to June 1994.

Mr. Fitzgerald, 41, is a native of Brooklyn, NY. He joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan in 1998 after three years as a litigation associate at the New York law firm, Christy & Viener. He graduated from Amherst College, Phi Beta Kappa, with a bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics in 1982, and from Harvard Law School in 1985.