Long Island Judge Faces Learning Curve as Trump Prosecutor Pick

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be US attorney in the Eastern District of New York has presided over cases as a state judge on Long Island involving defendants charged with stealing from makeup shop Sephora or drunk driving.

If confirmed, Joseph Nocella would lead cases of an entirely different scale out of the Brooklyn-based office that’s recently prosecuted Mexican drug cartel figures, Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, and former Rep. George Santos.

Nocella, a 1989 Columbia Law School graduate who began his career as a prosecutor there in the early 1990s, would return as the boss of a staff of roughly 160 lawyers and will find a broader range of cases involving national security and cybersecurity than he was exposed to 30 years ago.

“He’ll have a lot to catch up on when he gets there,” said Richard Donoghue, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP who served as the US Attorney for the Eastern District during Trump’s first term.

Getting Up to Speed

The Eastern District includes the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, as well as Long Island’s suburban Suffolk and Nassau counties.

After working as an E.D.N.Y. prosecutor from 1991 to 1995, Nocella shifted to private practice. He’s also had stints working for Long Island towns, including Hempstead and Oyster Bay.

Nocella was appointed Nassau County District Court judge in 2022 by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R) and was elected to the position the same year. In 2024, he was elected to serve a four-year term as a family court judge in the county.

A call to his chambers wasn’t returned Tuesday. A Trump transition spokesman also declined an interview regarding Nocella.

Former high-ranking E.D.N.Y. officials said he’ll need to get up to speed and ingratiate himself at an office that rivals its neighbor to the south—the Southern District of New York, where the US Attorney is often seen as Wall Street’s sheriff. They described the Eastern District as a high-intensity environment for creative and dogged lawyers.

“He will certainly have a bit of a learning curve because his practice hasn’t focused on federal criminal law over the last several years,” said James D. Gatta, ex-chief of the criminal division for the office.

Getting to know the roughly 340 people who work in the office now will be part of the work for Nocella: “For the most part, he’s not known to them,” Donoghue said. “When I came back in ’18, I knew over half the office. So that’s going to be a challenge.”

Different Resume

Recent predecessors as US attorney for the Eastern District had Big Law pedigrees or longer stints as prosecutors.

The outgoing top prosecutor for the office, Breon Peace, is an ex-partner at Cleary Gottlieb. Donoghue worked as an Eastern District prosecutor for over a decade. Loretta Lynch, who served as head of the office under Presidents Clinton and Obama, is an ex-Hogan & Hartson partner and former longtime prosecutor who went on to serve as attorney general and now is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

Supporters said Nocella’s mix of experiences is a plus. “There’s so many different segments of society that you end up dealing with in a job like that, so it takes someone like him who’s well-rounded and has a variety of experiences as an attorney,” said State Assemblyman Ed Ra (R).

The GOP chairman for the area, Joe Cairo, praised him as “eminently qualified for the position.”

Jim Walden, a former partner at Gibson Dunn and independent candidate for New York City mayor, overlapped with Nocella at the Eastern District of New York and said he was a mentor.

“Judges listened to what he said,” Walden recalled. “Joe was very good at answering the questions he was asked, and to advocate without going too far.”

“He didn’t take himself too seriously, and at a time when you’re feeling a lot of nervousness, he was a calming presence,” Walden said, of being supervised by Nocella when Walden was, he said, a “baby prosecutor.”

Road Ahead

If confirmed by the US Senate, Nocella will take over some of the federal government’s biggest cases. The office is currently prosecuting a sex-trafficking case against ex-Abercrombie & Fitch chief Mike Jeffries and a trade secrets case against Huawei Technologies.

Ex-Eastern District Long Island chief Nicole Boeckmann had a suggestion for Nocella: keep the current chiefs, at least at first.

“When you see people come in and clean house, it can be demoralizing,” she said. “You’re usually losing institutional knowledge. He should get to know the folks.”

One person with his eye on whoever takes that office is Santos’ attorney, Joseph Murray. Santos is facing sentencing on fraud charges from the Eastern District. Murray is so far unimpressed, saying Nocella’s too tied to the local party.

“I love these Ivy League brilliant minds but I prefer people in the trenches who see the work we do everyday,” he said.