Brooklyn lawyer confirmed as U.S. attorney

Loretta Lynch, whose mother worked as a field hand on a North Carolina farm, received unanimous Senate confirmation Thursday to be the next U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

It will be the second time that Lynch will serve in the office as the chief federal prosecutor for the district that includes Nassau and Suffolk counties, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Lynch, of Brooklyn, a Manhattan-based partner of the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson, served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District from 1999 to 2001 during President Bill Clinton's administration and as chief assistant U.S. attorney in the district from 1998 to 1999.

She will replace Benton Campbell, who has been serving as interim U.S. attorney.

President Barack Obama, who nominated her for the position, is expected to sign off shortly on her appointment. In addition, the Senate confirmed Denny Chin, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District, based in Manhattan, as a U.S. circuit judge for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Chin, now the only actively serving Asian-American judge on the federal appellate bench, was the first Asian-American to be appointed to be a U.S. District Court judge outside of the Ninth District, based in San Francisco. A graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Chin also is a graduate of Princeton University and Fordham University School of Law.

Lynch, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, knows Long Island particularly well, having headed the Long Island branch of the U.S. attorney's office from 1993 to 1998.

Her confirmation was hailed Thursday by a wide variety of people involved in the federal justice system, ranging from agents to defense attorneys who have opposed her office in court.

Roland Riopelle, a Manhattan defense attorney with the firm of Sercarz and Riopelle, said Lynch is "a wonderful lawyer, and, more importantly, a wonderful person - she has very sound judgment and is fundamentally a very decent person."

Michael Nestor, deputy head of the inspector general's office of the Port Authority, knew Lynch from her earlier tenure on Long Island, when he was with the U.S. Customs Service.

"As a federal agent, I know she works well with law enforcement and also had a concern for the rights of defendants - but her main concern was for justice - doing the right thing."

Zachary Carter, Lynch's predecessor as U.S. attorney before her first time in the office, lauded the confirmation, saying that Lynch has had "a long and distinguished career" as a prosecutor and a defense attorney.

When Lynch was growing up in North Carolina, her father was a pastor and her mother worked at times on a farm.

At her swearing-in as U.S. attorney in 1999, participants recalled that Lynch brought tears to their eyes when she remembered, in her girlhood, asking her mother why she saw her working as a farmhand in a field.

"So you don't have to," her mother replied, Lynch said.With John Riley