Liam O'Grady (born 1950) is a senior

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in case citations, E.D. Va.) is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. It has jurisdiction over the Northern Virginia, Hampton ...

and a Judge of the

Alien Terrorist Removal Court The United States Alien Terrorist Removal Court is a special court in the United States created in 1996 which has never conducted proceedings. It consists of five Article III judges, selected by the Chief Justice of the United States. Its job i ...

Early life and education

Born in

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, O'Grady attended Glen Ridge High School, graduating in 1968. He received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree from

Franklin & Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Fran ...

in 1973 and a Juris Doctor from

George Mason University School of Law The Antonin Scalia Law School (previously George Mason University School of Law) is the law school of George Mason University, a public research university in Virginia. It is located in Arlington, Virginia, roughly west of Washington, D.C., a ...

in 1977.

Professional career

He was in private practice in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

from 1992 to 2003. He was an Assistant commonwealth's attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia from 1982 to 1986. He was an Assistant United States Attorney of the Eastern District of Virginia from 1986 to 1992. He was a

United States magistrate judge In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee first appearances of criminal defendants, set bail, and conduc ...

for the Eastern District of Virginia from 2003 to 2007.

Federal judicial service

On January 9, 2007, O'Grady was nominated by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

to a seat on the

vacated by Claude M. Hilton. O'Grady was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on July 9, 2007, and received his commission on July 11, 2007. He assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on May 1, 2020. In 2021, he was appointed to the

Megaupload case

O'Grady was the presiding judge in extradition proceedings against

Kim Dotcom Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz; 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur and political activist who resides in Glenorchy, New Zealand. He first rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s ...

relating to the

Megaupload Megaupload Ltd was a Hong Kong-based online company established in 2005 that operated from 2005 to 2012 providing online services related to file storage and viewing. On 19 January 2012, the United States Department of Justice seized the do ...

file storage service. During April 2012 he stated: "I frankly don't know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter," when he found that the company had never been formally served with criminal papers by the US. In April 2022 O’Grady was replaced as a judge in the RIAA and MPA civil cases against

On May 21, 2022 O’Grady was replaced as a judge in both the criminal case against

due to conflict of interest, O'Grady had a financial stake in

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Daniel Hale case

O'Grady was the presiding judge in the case against

Daniel Hale Daniel Everette Hale (born 1987/1988) is an American whistleblower and former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst who sent classified information about drone warfare to the press. Hale served in the United States Air Force 2009� ...

. Hale is a

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

who leaked approximately 150 documents to a reporter on U.S. drone operations in the Middle East. The documents detailed how the policy of selecting targets was presumptuous rather than thorough; and the targeting was far from precise. In March 2021 Hale pleaded guilty to one count of providing classified information to a reporter. During sentencing, defense attorneys argued the government had no evidence showing that actual harm had arisen from the leaks, and the fact should be taken into account. In July 2021 O'Grady sentenced Hale to 45 months in prison. It was the second harshest sentence for a whistleblower (the harshest was

Reality Winner Reality Leigh Winner (born December 4, 1991) is an American former enlisted US Air Force member and NSA translator. In 2018, she was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for unauthorized release of government information to the media a ...

's sentence of 5 years in prison for whistleblowing).

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ogrady, Liam 1950 births Living people 21st-century American judges Assistant United States Attorneys Franklin & Marshall College alumni Antonin Scalia Law School alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Lawyers from Newark, New Jersey United States district court judges appointed by George W. Bush United States magistrate judges