Donald Trump has nominated a state court judge from Long Island to be U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a key prosecutor’s office that has aggressively brought cases involving malfeasance on Wall Street and beyond.
Joseph Nocella Jr., a graduate of Columbia Law School, served as a district court judge in Nassau County, according to Trump. If confirmed, he would replace Breon Peace, a Brooklyn native who was appointed US attorney by President Joe Biden in 2021. Peace has said he’d step down on Jan. 10.
“Judge Nocella has a strong record of bringing Law and Order to the incredible people of New York,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The Eastern District of New York is one of the highest-profile offices in the country and handles cases involving Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island as well as Suffolk and Nassau in Long Island. Nocella previously worked as a prosecutor in the office from 1991 to 1995 and has spent about 10 years in private practice.
During Peace’s tenure, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office brought high-profile prosecutions such as a sex-trafficking case against singer R. Kelly, a fraud indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and the criminal conviction of former Congressman George Santos.
