Liam O'Grady

Liam O'Grady (born 1950) is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and a Judge of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court.

Early life and education[]

Born in Newark, New Jersey, O'Grady attended Glen Ridge High School, graduating in 1968. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Franklin & Marshall College in 1973 and a Juris Doctor from George Mason University School of Law in 1977.

Professional career[]

He was in private practice in Virginia 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 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 to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia vacated by Claude M. Hilton. O'Grady was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 9, 2007, and received his commission on July 11, 2007. He assumed senior status on May 1, 2020. In 2021, he was appointed to the Alien Terrorist Removal Court.

Megaupload case[]

O'Grady is the presiding judge in the current extradition proceedings against Kim Dotcom relating to the Megaupload 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.^[1]

Daniel Hale case[]

O'Grady was the presiding judge in the case against Daniel Hale. Hale is a whistleblower 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.^[2]

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's sentence of 5 years in prison for whistleblowing).^[2]

References[]

Sources[]

• Liam O'Grady at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.