Acting U.S. Attorney Announces Appointment of Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Docherty to Serve as Federal Magistrate Judge in St. Paul

MINNEAPOLIS – W. Anders Folk, the Acting United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, today announced that Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Docherty has been appointed to serve as a United States Magistrate Judge. He will sit in St. Paul.

Mr. Docherty has served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota as an Assistant U.S. Attorney since 2002. In his capacity, Mr. Docherty prosecuted a wide range of cases, focusing on international and domestic terrorism, civil rights cases, and cases involving the illegal export of sensitive U.S. technology. Mr. Docherty also served as the Office’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC) Coordinator. Between 2006 and 2008, Mr. Docherty left the U.S. Attorney’s Office temporarily to work as a prosecutor at the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, the Netherlands. There, he was a senior member of the prosecution team at the trial of General Dragomir Milosevic, the commander of the troops encircling Sarajevo during the last two years of the siege of that city. Milosevic was convicted, following a nine-month trial, of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Prior to joining the Office, Mr. Docherty worked at the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. before returning to Minnesota to join the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, where, under Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III, he worked in the Antitrust Division and the Criminal Division. Mr. Docherty graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota Law School. He is a current member and past President of the Warren E. Burger American Inn of Court, and a member of the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

Acting U.S. Attorney W. Anders Folk said: “I am proud that John Docherty has been selected to serve as a Magistrate Judge for the District of Minnesota. John is an excellent AUSA who handled some of our Office’s most difficult and complex cases. I know John will bring the same sense of justice and fairness to the bench that he brought to his work as a federal prosecutor. The people of the District of Minnesota will be well-served by his ongoing commitment to justice.”