Fitzgerald, Patrick J.

▪ 2006

 U.S. Attorney and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had made headlines for years by announcing convictions and indictments, but he remained largely unnoticed until October 2005, when he captivated the country during a televised press conference at which he summarized his two-year investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity. The political stakes were steep; Fitzgerald indicted I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, chief of staff to U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, for having made false statements and having committed perjury during a grand jury investigation of the CIA leak case. He used the press conference to outline Libby's alleged crimes and explain the consequences of revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, the formerly covert CIA operative. One month later People magazine endorsed Fitzgerald's celebrity status in its “sexiest men of the year” feature.

      Fitzgerald was born to Irish immigrant parents in New York City on Dec. 22, 1960. He paid for his university studies by working as a janitor and—like his father—as a doorman in Manhattan. Fitzgerald studied math and economics at Amherst (Mass.) College, graduating in 1982. He earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1985 and worked in private practice until 1988, when he joined the U.S. Department of Justice (Southern District of New York) as an assistant U.S. attorney in New York City. In that job he pursued cases against drug dealers, Mafia leaders, and terrorists—including the indictment of Osama bin Laden in 1998 for the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He also developed a reputation for using obscure or long-forgotten laws to clinch a case; he built his case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) upon a statute that dated back to the Civil War.

      Despite a portfolio brimming with high-stakes, politically charged cases, Fitzgerald shunned affiliation with any political party—a stance that lent credence to his work. This helped when in 2001 Fitzgerald became the U.S. attorney (Northern District of Illinois) in Chicago, where he brought corruption charges against Democrats and Republicans alike, among them former Illinois governor George Ryan and associates of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. He again drew on the finer points of law, using mail-fraud charges to bring indictments against Ryan.

      Fitzgerald continued his work as the U.S. attorney in Chicago after becoming the Justice Department's special prosecutor for the CIA leak investigation in 2003. The case became clouded in mid-November 2005 when Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward revealed that he had been told of Valerie Plame's identity one month before Libby exposed Plame's covert status. Taking their cue from Woodward's revelation, political pundits slammed Fitzgerald as overzealous. The following day Fitzgerald made new headlines by indicting Canadian-British media tycoon Conrad Black for fraud, and within one week he had opened a new grand jury investigation into the CIA leak case, raising the possibility of additional charges' being brought against other members of the White House inner circle.

Sarah Forbes Orwig

* * *

▪ American lawyer

born Dec. 22, 1960, New York City, N.Y., U.S.

 

 American lawyer who, as the U.S. attorney (Northern District of Illinois) in Chicago and as a special prosecutor, supervised a number of high-profile investigations in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

      Fitzgerald was born to Irish immigrant parents in New York City. He paid for his university studies by working as a janitor and—like his father—as a doorman in Manhattan. Fitzgerald studied mathematics and economics at Amherst (Mass.) College, graduating in 1982. He earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1985 and worked in private practice until 1988, when he joined the U.S. Department of Justice (Southern District of New York) as an assistant U.S. attorney in New York City. In that job, he pursued cases against drug dealers, Mafia leaders, and terrorists—including the indictment of Osama bin Laden (bin Laden, Osama) in 1998 for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He also developed a reputation for using obscure or long-forgotten laws to clinch a case; he built his case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) upon a statute that dated back to the Civil War.

      Despite a portfolio brimming with high-stakes, politically charged cases, Fitzgerald shunned affiliation with any political party—a stance that lent credence to his work. This helped when in 2001 Fitzgerald became the U.S. attorney in Chicago, where he brought corruption charges against Republicans and Democrats alike, among them former Illinois governor George Ryan and associates of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (Daley, Richard M.). He again drew on the finer points of law, using mail fraud charges to bring indictments against Ryan.

      Fitzgerald continued his work as the U.S. attorney in Chicago after becoming in 2003 the Justice Department's special prosecutor for the investigation into the leak of the identity of a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer (Valerie Plame). In October 2005, after two years of conducting interviews and collecting evidence, Fitzgerald indicted I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, chief of staff to U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney (Cheney, Dick), for having made false statements and having committed perjury during a grand jury investigation of the case. The following month Fitzgerald made new headlines by indicting Canadian-British media tycoon Conrad Black (Black, Conrad) for fraud. Both Libby and Black were later convicted. In December 2008 Fitzgerald filed criminal corruption charges against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, alleging that, among other things, Blagojevich had attempted to “sell” the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama (Obama, Barack).

* * *