Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the shuffling of personnel Monday, including changes to leadership in the Criminal Division, Narcotics Unit and the General Crimes Unit.
Katherine Goldstein was named co-chief of the General Crimes Unit, Rebecca Ricigliano was tapped as co-chief of the Narcotics Unit and Diane Gujarati was named as the deputy chief of the Criminal Division. Stephen Ritchin and Miriam Rocah were appointed as co-chiefs of the office’s White Plains Division.
Goldstein came to the office in 2004 from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr. Most recently, she served as a member in the Criminal Division’s securities and commodities fraud task force, working on a few high-profile fraud prosecutions. She is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School.
Ricigliano joined the office in 2005 after a stint with Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP. She has served as deputy chief of the Narcotics Unit since 2010, working on prosecutions of major drug traffickers and the first federal bath salts case in the country. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Buffalo.
Gujarati most recently served as the chief of the office’s White Plains Division. Before that, she served as deputy chief in the division and deputy chief of the Criminal Division’s Appeals Unit. She came to the office in 1999 after working as an associate at Davis, Polk & Wardwell. She is a graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School.
Miriam Rocah (Credit: NYU)
Rocah most recently served as co-chief of the Criminal Division’s General Crimes Unit. She was also previously chief of the Organized Crime Unit and deputy chief of the Narcotics Unit. She is noted for her work in prosecuting members of the DeCavalcante, Genovese and Gambino crime families. She joined the office in 2001 after working as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. She is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law.
Ritchin joined the office in 1994 after serving 11 years in private practice. He most recently worked as senior trial counsel in the office’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. Before that, he served as co-chief of the General Crimes Unit and co-chief of the Major Crimes Unit.
Among the high-profile prosecutions Ritchin worked on was that of American businessman James Giffen, accused of funneling $84 million in bribes to Kazakh officials on behalf of oil companies in the 1990s. Giffen eventually pleaded guilty to a minor charge after the 7-year prosecution crumbled amid sustained pressure from the Kazakhs and the CIA, on whose behalf Giffen said he’d been working in his dealings with the Kazakhs.
