Carolyn Pokorny

Carolyn Pokorny is the Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.  As Acting U.S. Attorney, Ms. Pokorny is the chief federal law enforcement officer responsible for all federal criminal prosecutions and civil litigation involving the United States in a district comprised of more than 8 million people in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, and in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island.  She leads a staff of over 350 federal prosecutors, investigators, paralegals and other support professionals.  Immediately prior to her appointment, Ms. Pokorny served as the Office’s First Assistant U.S. Attorney.  Ms. Pokorny has been with the Department of Justice for more than 18 years and held many leadership positions, both in the Office and at Main Justice, where she was Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to then Attorney General of the United States, Loretta E. Lynch. 

In 2020, Ms. Pokorny returned to the Office after serving as the Inspector General for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  Prior to that appointment, she served as Special Counsel for Public Integrity in New York’s Executive Chamber, where she oversaw the ethics, risk and compliance program for state agencies and authorities.  Ms. Pokorny previously was a partner at a boutique law firm in Manhattan.

She is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School where she served as the Associate Managing Editor of the Brooklyn Law Review.  She began her legal career as a prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, followed by a two-year clerkship with the late United States District Judge Arthur D. Spatt of the Eastern District of New York.