Preet Bharara

Preetinder Singh "Preet" Bharara (born 1968) an Indian American, is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In 2012 Bharara was named by Time Magazine as "One of The 100 Most Influential People in the World."

Early life and education

Bharara was born in 1968 in Firozpur, Punjab, India, to a Sikh father and Hindu mother. He grew up in suburban Monmouth County, New Jersey and attended Ranney School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1986. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1990 and Columbia Law School in 1993, where he was a member of the Columbia Law Review.

Career

Bharara previously served as the chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer and played a leading role in the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary investigation into the firings of United States attorneys. He was assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan for five years, bringing criminal cases against the bosses of the Gambino and Colombo crime families and Asian gangs in New York City.

U.S. Attorney

Bharara was nominated to become U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Barack Obama on May 15, 2009 and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He was sworn in to the position on August 13, 2009.

Under Bharara, in May 2011, the office convicted hedge fund billionaire, Raj Rajaratnam at trial on all 14 counts with which he was charged. Bharara "reaffirmed his office’s leading role in pursuing corporate crime with this landmark insider trading case, which relied on aggressive prosecutorial methods and unprecedented tactics."

Bharara has said the office’s top priority is protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism, whether homegrown or foreign-based. During his tenure as U.S. Attorney, the office has prosecuted several international terrorists, and secured life sentences for Faisal Shazad, the Times Square Bomber, and Ahmed Ghailani, an Al Qaeda associate who was responsible for the mass murder of innocents at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bharara’s office convicted Affia Siddiqui for attempting to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan as well as four men for plotting to blow up a synagogue in Riverdale. In February 2011, the first pirate in modern times, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to more than 33 years in prison, following prosecution by the office. Bharara’s office is also prosecuting alleged associates of al-Shabaab, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and Hizballah. According to Bharara, after 9/11 “as crime has gone global and national security threats are global, in my view the long arm of the law has to get even longer. We can’t wait until bombs are going off.”

Bharara’s office worked together with the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC to secure a $7.2 billion settlement with the estate of Jeffrey Picower – the largest forfeiture in U.S. history. The money will be used to compensate victims of Madoff’s fraud. His office is also handling the criminal prosecutions of several employees at Madoff’s firm and their associates. The investigation remains ongoing.

Bharara has said that “there is no prosecutor’s office in the state that takes more seriously the responsibility to root out public corruption in Albany and anywhere else that we might find it, and I think our record speaks for itself.” During his tenure, Bharara has charged several current and former elected officials in public corruption cases, including Senator Vincent Leibell, Senator Hiram Monserrate, NYC Councilman Larry Seabrook, and Yonkers City Councilwoman Sandy Annabi. Bharara’s office uncovered an alleged corruption ring involving New York State Senator Carl Kruger. In April 2012, Kruger was sentenced to seven years in prison. In February 2011, Bharara announced the indictment of five consultants working on New York City’s electronic payroll and timekeeping project, CityTime, for misappropriating more than $80 million from the project. The investigation has expanded with five additional defendants being charged, including a consultant who allegedly received more than $5 million illegal kickbacks on the projects.

In January 2011, Bharara’s office participated in a multi-state organized crime takedown, charging 26 members of the Gambino crime family with racketeering, murder, narcotics, and firearms charges. This action was part of a coordinated effort with U.S. Attorney Offices in Brooklyn, New York, Newark, New Jersey and Providence, Rhode Island. Bharara has also overseen the largest criminal sweep of gangs in Newburgh, New York, working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement agencies to bring charges against members of the Latin Kings and Bloods gangs, amongst others.

Since entering office, Bharara renewed focus on sophisticated, large-scale frauds, creating a Complex Frauds Unit in the Criminal Division and a partner Civil Frauds Unit in the Civil Division to focus on these types of crimes. The Complex Frauds Unit has uncovered and prosecuted cases involving frauds of all kinds, including a massive fraud involving disability benefits at the Long Island Rail Road, an immigration fraud mill that operated through a Manhattan-based law firm, and a $57.3 million fraud on the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which administers programs established to aid the survivors of Nazi persecution. The Complex Frauds Unit is also uniquely situated to address the emerging threat of cybercrime. In November 2011, the Office charged seven defendants with operating an internet fraud scheme that infected more than four million computers worldwide and manipulated internet advertising business. The Civil Frauds Unit has investigated and brought cases against Deutsche Bank and a subsidiary, Mortgage IT, as well as Allied Home Mortgage, for reckless and fraudulent lending practices. In February 2012, the office filed and simultaneously settled a civil fraud lawsuit against CitiMortgage. As part of the settlement, the bank admitted and accepted responsibility for failing to comply with certain HUD-related loan requirements and other conduct and agreed to pay the U.S. $158.3 million.

Bharara has also been very active in prosecutions related to online poker. In 2010, he "threatened an Australian payment processor with up to 75 years in prison for helping online poker companies do business with their U.S. customers." In April 2011, Bharara charged 11 founding members of internet gambling companies and their associates involved with pay processing with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). The case is United States v. Scheinberg. "Bharara does not claim online poker directly violates federal law, which prohibits the use of 'a wire communication facility' to accept bets 'on any sporting event or contest' but is silent on the legality of other online wagers. Instead he piggybacks on a New York statute that makes promoting 'unlawful gambling activity' a Class A misdemeanor. Bharara's indictment also mentions 'the laws of other states,' a few of which do explicitly ban online poker." He has been accused of seeking the "most expedient" cases to pursue, rather than the most serious, such as online poker and insider trading, and of taking "an alleged New York misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of one year in jail and turning it into multiple federal felonies".

Bharara's signature is also found at the indictment against suspected hackers of the LulzSec group.

Personal

Bharara is a naturalized United States citizen. He is married with three children. His brother, Vinit Bharara, is a successful entrepreneur having started various consumer businesses including diapers.com.


Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara