Joseph Nocella Jr., Trump’s U.S. Attorney Pick, Is a Long Island Judge
As a district court judge on Long Island, Joseph Nocella Jr. presided over low-level criminal cases and disputes involving small amounts of money. He could soon oversee some of the country’s highest-profile criminal cases.
On Tuesday, President-elect Donald J. Trump announced that Mr. Nocella was his pick to be the next U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. In a statement announcing his choice on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said Mr. Nocella had “a strong record of bringing Law and Order to the incredible people of New York.”
As a Long Island judge, Mr. Nocella has adjudicated matters like Covid-19 relief fraud and drunken-driving cases and presided over family court.
The Eastern District, where Mr. Nocella was a prosecutor decades ago, operates at a different scale: The office and its 160-some prosecutors have long pursued high-profile cases involving organized crime, national security and foreign politicians. It has won convictions in a variety of recent blockbuster cases, including against the singer R. Kelly, who was convicted of sex crimes; the disgraced former congressman George Santos; and leaders of the sex cult NXIVM.
Seth DuCharme, who served as acting U.S. attorney in 2020, said Mr. Nocella’s range of experiences, including presiding over a small court, would serve him well in the district, which he called “a friendlier version” of its more high-profile neighbor, the Southern District of New York. But he noted that Mr. Nocella was something of an outsider.
“I think that probably most of the prosecutors were surprised,” Mr. DuCharme said. “It’s not a name they’ve heard about a lot.”
Former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, a Long Island Republican, said the Nassau Republican Party’s chairman, Joseph G. Cairo Jr., “went to bat” for Mr. Nocella with the incoming Trump administration to help secure the nomination, which the Senate must approve.
“He’s a fairly new judge, but outstanding. You couldn’t get a better background,” Mr. D’Amato said in an interview. “A great selection.”
Mr. Nocella, who could not be reached for comment, graduated from Fordham University in 1986 and received his law degree from Columbia University in 1989. During a stint as an assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District from 1991 to 1995, Mr. Nocella won convictions against a married couple who stole $35 million from large banks, and against Vittorio Amuso, the head of the Lucchese crime family.
As U.S. attorney, Mr. Nocella would earn almost $192,000 annually. The Eastern District he would oversee covers Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, as well as Suffolk and Nassau counties, a population of about eight million people, according to its website.
Mr. Nocella has deep connections in Nassau County’s formidable Republican political machine and has spent recent years working in a series of prominent legal roles in local government. He worked as a lawyer for Nassau County and later as town attorney in Oyster Bay and Hempstead before becoming a judge in 2022. Mr. Nocella was also a reliable donor to G.O.P. causes, contributing thousands of dollars to local Republican candidates and clubs over the last decades.
Nassau County has lurched to the right politically in recent years, with its Republican Party embracing Mr. Trump. Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive who won election in 2021, is a close ally of Mr. Trump and has created a force of armed citizens he says will be used in case of civil unrest and has also faced off with a roller derby team with transgender members.
In a social media post, Mr. Blakeman praised the choice of Mr. Nocella, calling him “a valuable asset in fighting crime and protecting the homeland.”
Some Democrats criticized Mr. Nocella as overly partisan, but others signaled they were more supportive of his nomination. Representative Laura Gillen, a first-term Democrat who represents a competitive district on Long Island, said she would “look forward to working with him on the issues that matter to Nassau County residents.”
Anne Donnelly, the Nassau County district attorney and a Republican, said she had known Mr. Nocella since they were 18 and students at Fordham University and described him as fair-minded. She said his experience overseeing “a rainbow of cases,” along with his familiarity with the Eastern District’s terrain, would serve him well.
“One thing about Joe: He certainly knows Long Island,” Ms. Donnelly said.
Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.
