Hochul is confirmed as U.S. Attorney

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WIVB) - The U.S. Senate has confirmed William Hochul to be the new U.S. Attorney for the Western New York District. His wife is Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul.

Release: The United States Senate voted today and with unanimous consent, confirmed William J. Hochul Jr. as the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York. Hochul will be officially sworn in by a U.S. District Court Judge as early as this week.

I am extremely honored to have been recommended by Sen. Charles Schumer and nominated by the President to serve as United States Attorney for the 17 counties of Western New York," Hochul said after the confirmation vote. "While there are many challenges facing us, I will draw on my 23 years of experience as a federal prosecutor to protect our community and to ensure the fair administration of justice.
I look forward to continuing to work with the extremely professional attorneys and staff, as well as with the federal, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the Western District of New York."

Hochul is a career federal prosecutor who handled numerous high profile criminal prosecutions over the past two decades involving violent street gangs, organized crime groups, fraud and terrorism. One of Hochul's terrorism cases involved the prosecution of a group of men who left Western New York to train with al Qaeda, dubbed by the international media as the "Lackawanna Six." Since 2002, Hochul has supervised all international and domestic terrorism investigations conducted in this area of the country, and for the past several years, has also supervised all organized crime, human trafficking, and other sensitive national security matters.

Mr. Hochul was nominated by President Obama in December, 2009 to be the next U.S. attorney for Western New York. In May, 2009, Senator Charles E. Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recommended him for the post.

Hochul is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University at Buffalo Law School. Hochul began his career clerking for a Judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals, and as an associate at a large Washington, D.C. law firm. In 1987, Mr. Hochul joined the United States Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia, where he prosecuted a large number of violent crime, fraud, narcotics, and other cases. Mr.
Hochul later specialized in the prosecution of first degree murder cases, before leaving the D.C. United States Attorney's Office in 1991 to become an Assistant United States Attorney in Buffalo.

Hochul received numerous awards and commendations over his years as a prosecutor, including the United States Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service - the highest award conferred by the United
States Department of Justice. Mr. Hochul also was awarded a Service to
America Award (2003), the Am Pol 2008 Citizen of the Year - Law Category Award; the 2008 Distinguished Leadership Award; the Federal Law Foundation's Investigator of the Year Award (2006); and was recognized by McGraw-Hill Engineer News-Record magazine as a Top 25 Newsmaker for having purged Niagara County, New York of decades of construction industry violence and intimidation. Hochul also received numerous Special Achievement Awards presented by various federal agencies. Mr.
Hochul frequently speaks, domestically and abroad, to law enforcement groups, attorneys, and judges on matters relating to investigating and prosecuting organized crime, gang, terrorism, and money laundering offenses. He served previously as an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law, where he taught classes on trial techniques, at Niagara University, where he taught courses on terrorism, and was on the faculty of Hilbert College, where he taught a terrorism/homeland security course.

Mr. Hochul is married to Kathy Hochul. Hochul has two children, Bill III, an intern at the United States State Department, and Katie, a junior at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.