Chester Higgins Jr/The New York Times

On Sunday, December 29, 2013, New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio named NAFUSA board member Zachary Carter as corporation counsel for the City of New York. Carter, shown above left, with Mayor-elect de Blasio at Sunday’s press conference.

Carter is a partner at the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney LLP in New York City, and co-chair’s the firm’s white collar crime and civil fraud practice. He served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1993 to 1999. He is also a former magistrate judge of the United States District Court for the ED of New York and a former judge of the Criminal Court for the City of New York.

In an editorial in today’s New York Times, the paper said:

In selecting Zachary Carter, the former judge and United States attorney, as corporation counsel, the mayor-elect tapped someone with a long history at the top levels of the justice system. Mr. Carter has served as a criminal court judge and as a federal magistrate. But he is best known for his record during the 1990s as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He successfully prosecuted many high-profile cases, including the one against Jordan Belfort, the stock trader known as the Wolf of Wall Street, and the case against the New York City police officers who brutally assaulted Abner Louima.