Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Page 3
Thomas O’Brien Sworn In as U.S. Attorney for Central District
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Thomas P. O’Brien was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California by U.S. District Judge John F. Walter in a private ceremony on Friday afternoon after being unanimously confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate on Thursday.
O’Brien, 48, succeeds George S. Cardona, who served as the interim U.S. Attorney and Acting U.S. Attorney for nearly one year after U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang resigned to go into private practice. He will run the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office outside of the District of Columbia, employing approximately 230 attorneys and encompassing Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
“I am extremely pleased to be leading one of the nation’s premier public law firms,” O’Brien said after the ceremony. “I look forward to maintaining this office’s long tradition of prosecuting some of the most significant cases in the nation.”
Having run the office’s Criminal Division for the past 27 months, O’Brien joined the office in 2000 after serving as a prosecutor in the Hardcore Gang Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1981, eventually logging 2,000 flight hours as a radar intercept officer in F-14 “Tomcat” fighters, and attended the University of San Diego School of Law.
The U.S. Attorney’s office announced Friday that O’Brien is expected to conduct a media availability during the week of Oct. 22.
The Senate on Thursday also confirmed the appointments of Jennifer Walker Elrod of Texas to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Roslynn Renee Mauskopf of New York to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Sharion Aycock of Mississippi to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, and Richard A. Jones of Washington to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
It also confirmed James Russell Dedrick as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee and Edward Meacham Yarbrough as the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company