At DOJ’s Eastern District of NY, new leadership

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The U.S. Justice Department’s Eastern District of New York has announced new leadership.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced the appointment of Alixandra Smith as the office’s chief of the Criminal Division, as well as John Durham as chief of the Long Island Division and chief of the Criminal Section of the Long Island Division. In addition, Peace announced the recent appointment of Richard Hayes as the office’s chief of the Civil Division.

“I make these announcements with tremendous pride and excitement,” Peace said in a news release about the recent appointments. “Alix, John and Rich are brilliant legal minds with vast expertise in serving the Office, through both impressive casework and leadership positions. I have the utmost confidence they will continue to do what they do best – inspire and lead their teams in the pursuit of equal justice.”

Smith joined the office in 2012 and has served in the General Crimes, Organized Crime and Gangs, and Business and Securities Fraud (BSF) Sections, and as a deputy chief of BSF, chief of BSF and a Criminal Division deputy chief. Smith is vice chair of the Criminal Division Hiring Committee, chair of the office’s e-Litigation Committee and co-teaches the EDNY Prosecution Externship at New York University Law School. Smith is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Previously, she worked as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and at Jenner & Block, and clerked for the Judge Faith Hochberg, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, as well as Judge Julio Fuentes, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Durham joined the office in October 2005 and has served in the General Crimes Section and Long Island Criminal Section. Durham has been appointed to several leadership positions in the office and the DOJ, including deputy chief for the Long Island Criminal Section, the office’s Capital Case coordinator, the attorney general’s Review Committee on Capital Cases and chair of the MS-13 Subcommittee of the AG’s Transnational Organized Crime Task Force. In August 2019, Durham was appointed to serve as the director of Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV), a DOJ initiative to combat La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), where he spearheaded indictments against MS-13’s highest-ranking international leaders. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1998 and from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2001. Durham clerked for U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson in the Southern District of New York.

Hayes joined in the office’s Civil Division in 1991, and since then has litigated nearly every type of case. He had been a deputy chief of the Civil Division since 2012 with overall supervisory responsibility for the division’s Affirmative Civil Enforcement, Civil Rights, Drug and Listed Chemical, Environmental and Health Care Fraud practices. Previously, he served as the office’s chief of Affirmative Civil Enforcement. Hayes graduated from Fordham University School of Law, where he was on the Moot Court Editorial Board and a member of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. He received his B.A. in history and political science summa cum laude from Fordham University and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.