Ronnie Abrams

Birthday June 3, 1968

Birth Sign Gemini

Birthplace New York City, New York, U.S.

Age 55 years old

Nationality United States

#51998 Most Popular

1968

Ronnie Abrams (born June 3, 1968) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Abrams is one of two children born to Efrat Abrams and Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer.

Her brother, Dan Abrams, is a television personality and internet entrepreneur who serves as legal analyst for Good Morning America.

She was raised in New York City's Upper East Side, where she attended the Dalton School.

1990

Abrams received a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University in 1990.

1993

In 1993, she received a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.

After completing law school, she served as a law clerk for Judge Thomas P. Griesa of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

1994

She had previously worked at the firm as a litigation associate from 1994 to 1998.

While at Davis Polk, Ms. Abrams served as counsel to the New York State Justice Task Force, a task force created by New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to examine the causes of wrongful convictions and make recommendations for changes to safeguard against such convictions in the future.

Abrams is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, where she teaches about investigating and prosecuting federal criminal cases.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand recommended Abrams to fill a judicial vacancy on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

1998

From 1998 to 2008, Abrams worked as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, where she served as Chief of the General Crimes Unit from 2005 to 2007 and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division from 2007 to 2008.

She received the United States Department of Justice Director's Award for Superior Performance for two cases.

The first case involved the convictions of members of a Colombian gang wanted for the murder of a New York City police detective and some 100 armed robberies; the second case was for the convictions of leaders of the Bloods gang.

2008

In 2008, Abrams returned to Davis Polk as Special Counsel for Pro Bono.

2011

On July 28, 2011, President Barack Obama formally nominated Abrams to the Southern District of New York.

She was nominated to the seat vacated by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who assumed senior status on February 1, 2011.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on her nomination on October 4, 2011, and reported her nomination to the floor on November 3, 2011.

2012

On March 22, 2012, the Senate confirmed Abrams by a 96–2 vote.

She received her commission on March 23, 2012.

2013

In October 2013, Carmen Segarra filed suit against the Federal Reserve in an action Abrams presided over, alleging that she was terminated due to reporting to her superiors that the Goldman Sachs Group did not have a firmwide conflict-of-interest policy.

Segarra alleged that her termination violated the whistleblower protection provisions of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act,.

2014

On April 3, 2014, Judge Abrams disclosed that her husband, Greg Andres, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, represented Goldman Sachs.

In April 2014, Abrams dismissed the suit.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal, calling some of Segarra's arguments, "entirely speculative, meritless and frankly quite silly."

2015

In 2015, Abrams, together with another judge, created and began to run the "Young Adult Opportunity Program," a judicially supervised pretrial program for non-violent young adults charged in the Southern District of New York.

The Program provides young adult defendants with access to employment, counseling, and treatment resources.

Program participants, if they are successful, may receive a shorter sentence, or even a reduction, deferral or dismissal of the charges against them.

Abrams has also been involved in other criminal justice reform efforts, including the creation of reentry courts in her district.

2016

In 2016, Abrams was assigned to preside over a case in which Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were accused by the plaintiff of having raped her in the 1990s, when the plaintiff was 13 years old.

The complaint was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by the plaintiff in September 2016.

2017

In January 2017, Abrams was assigned to preside over a pending case in which Donald Trump was sued by a nonprofit group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, over an alleged violation by Trump of the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses of the United States Constitution.

On July 11, 2017, Abrams recused herself from the case when her husband, Greg Andres, began talks to join Special Counsel Robert Mueller's staff investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

2018

In April 2018, Abrams presided over the trial of an ex-U.S. Army Sergeant and two other men who were convicted of participating in a murder for hire of a woman in the Philippines.

The primary cooperating witness was Paul Le Roux, a notorious crime lord who testified about the covert world of mercenary work as well as selling missile technology to Iran and smuggling weapons to rebels and warlords.

In June 2018, Abrams presided over a trial of individuals charged with helping run a scheme, masterminded by serial fraudster Jason Galanis, to defraud a Native American tribe and multiple pension funds through the issuance of $60 million worth of tribal bonds.

The judge ordered a new trial for one of the men convicted, Devon Archer, concluding that it was not clear that Archer knew that the bond issue was fraudulent, or that he received any personal benefit from it.

Abrams said she was thus “left with an unwavering concern that Archer is innocent of the crimes charged.” Archer's conviction was reinstated by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which clarified the standard for when a district court may grant a new trial, holding that it may not do so "based on the weight of the evidence alone unless the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict to such an extent that it would be 'manifest injustice' to let the verdict stand."

Archer and Hunter Biden were business partners, although Biden was not implicated in the scheme.

A lawyer for Hunter Biden said that he cut ties with those involved when he learned of the conduct alleged.