Joon Hyun Kim (born May 26, 1971) is an American attorney who served as the acting

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York is the chief federal law enforcement officer in eight New York counties: New York (Manhattan), Bronx, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess and Sullivan. Establishe ...

from March 2017 to January 2018. He was Deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from July 2015 to March 2017 after serving as the chief of the criminal division since July 2014. From April 2013 to July 2014, Kim was the chief counsel to the U.S. Attorney. In March 2021, Kim was chosen by

New York Attorney General The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government of ...

Letitia James Letitia Ann James (born October 18, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party and the current Attorney General of New York, having won the 2018 election to succeed appointed Attorney General Barbara Und ...

independent counsel The Office of Special Counsel was an office of the United States Department of Justice established by provisions in the Ethics in Government Act that expired in 1999. The provisions were replaced by Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part ...

, along with Anne L. Clark, to co-lead the investigation into sexual harassment claims made against

New York Governor The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a ...

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

Education and early career

Kim attended

Phillips Exeter Academy (not for oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God) , location = 20 Main Street , city = Exeter, New Hampshire , zipcode ...

, where he graduated in 1989, and graduated

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1993 and graduated ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, in 1996. After law school, he clerked for

Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum (September 16, 1929 – February 5, 2016) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Education Born into a Jewish family, Cedarbaum grew up in the Crow ...

of the Southern District of New York.

Career

U.S. Attorney's office

Kim joined the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York in 2000. As an

assistant U.S. attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...

, he investigated and prosecuted a wide range of federal crimes including racketeering, murder, money laundering, securities fraud, firearms and narcotics offenses, tax evasion, and terrorism. He spent his prior years in the office in the organized crime and terrorism unit, prosecuting violent organized crime syndicates, including Asian gangs and the

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

. During his tenure, Kim helped secure convictions of a number of high-ranking organized crime figures including

Peter Gotti Peter Arthur Gotti (October 15, 1939 – February 25, 2021) was an American mobster. He was the boss of the Gambino crime family, part of the American Mafia, and the elder brother of the former Gambino boss John Gotti. Early life Gotti was born ...

, boss of the

Gambino Family The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Am ...

, for conspiring to kill Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano.

Private practice

From 2006 to 2013, Kim worked at

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP (known as Cleary Gottlieb) is an American multinational law firm headquartered at One Liberty Plaza in New York City. Known as a white shoe law firm, Cleary employs over 1,200 lawyers worldwide. History Th ...

, where he was a partner in the litigation and enforcement group, focusing on white-collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement, commercial civil litigation and international arbitration.

Return to the U.S. Attorney's office

Kim rejoined the United States Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York as chief counsel in April 2013. After becoming the chief of its criminal division in July 2014, he was promoted to Deputy U.S. Attorney in July 2015. When

Preet Bharara Preetinder Singh Bharara (; born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American lawyer, author, podcaster and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is current ...

was fired as U.S. Attorney in March 2017, Kim replaced him in an acting capacity, but had to be replaced in January 2018 because of a 300-day limit on acting U.S. attorneys. Kim's term was notable for the continued prosecution of high-profile terrorism cases, pursuing a prison term for

Anthony Weiner Anthony David Weiner (; born September 4, 1964) is an American former politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1999 until his resignation in 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he consistently carried the district with at l ...

following his guilty plea to a federal obscenity charge, and for securing the conviction of

Mehmet Hakan Atilla Halkbank is a Turkish bank, first incorporated in 1933 as a state-owned bank. After growing throughout much of the twentieth century, it began absorbing smaller-sized state banks around the turn of the millennium. Halkbank is now a publicly trad ...

, a Turkish banker, on fraud and conspiracy charges in a billion-dollar scheme to help Iran evade American financial sanctions via Turkish banks, despite an investigation of the American prosecutors by the government of Turkey. On November 30, 2017, Kim announced the sentencing of Aharon Goldberg, Shimen Liebowitz and Binyamin Gottlieb, three organizers of the

Kiryas Joel murder conspiracy The Kiryas Joel murder conspiracy was the planned kidnapping and murder of Joseph Masri, a Hasidic resident of the village of Kiryas Joel, New York in a troubled marriage who had refused to give his wife a get (divorce document). The plot was hatc ...

who had tried to force an end to their intended victim's marriage under

Jewish marital law Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

Return to private practice

In April 2018, Kim returned as a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. In coordination with the New York Office of Attorney General, Kim served as an independent investigator into the accusations of sexual assault and harassment against Governor

. The investigation ultimately led to Cuomo resigning from his position as Governor on August 10th, 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Joon H. Living people Stanford University alumni Harvard Law School alumni United States Attorneys for the Southern District of New York American people of Korean descent Phillips Exeter Academy alumni People associated with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton 1971 births