PATRICK FITZGERALD FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL - ILLINOIS 2014

FORMER UNITED STATES FEDERAL PROSECUTOR PATRICK FITZGERALD JOINS AMHERST COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

AMHERST, Mass. — Amherst College alumnus Patrick Fitzgerald ’82 was elected to serve on the board by his fellow alumni. Fitzgerald received an honorary doctorate from Amherst in 2007.

Fitzgerald, who joined the Chicago office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates as partner last year, served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois from 2001 to 2012. In this capacity, he led numerous high-profile investigations and prosecutions, including the convictions on corruption charges of two successive governors of Illinois—George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich. As a special counsel, Fitzgerald was selected to lead the investigation of leaks in the Valerie Plame matter and tried the case of United States v. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Fitzgerald was born in Brooklyn and grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood. He attended Our Lady Help of Christians Grammar School and Regis High School, a prestigious Jesuit Catholic school in Manhattan. He earned a B.A. degree in economics and mathematics and Phi Beta Kappa membership from Amherst College in 1982 before receiving his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1985.

After practicing civil law, Fitzgerald was named an assistant U.S. attorney in New York City in 1988. He handled drug-trafficking cases and, in 1993, assisted in the prosecution of Mafia figure John Gambino, a capo in the Gambino crime family. In 1994, Fitzgerald successfully prosecuted Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1996, Fitzgerald became the national security coordinator for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

There, he served on a team of prosecutors investigating Osama bin Laden. He also served as chief counsel in prosecutions related to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Fitzgerald was confirmed as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in

The Board of Trustees of Amherst College consists of the president of the college and 20 other members: 14 term trustees elected and then appointed by the board and six alumni trustees elected by the alumni of the college. Two trustees will step down from the board on June 15: William E. Ford ’83, who has served on the board since 2001, and Blair H. Taylor ’85, who was elected to the board in 2007.

Founded in 1821, Amherst is a highly selective, coeducational liberal arts college with 1,800 students from most of the 50 states and more than 30 other countries. Considered one of the nation’s best educational institutions, Amherst awards the B.A. degree in 37 fields of study. Sixty percent of Amherst students receive need-based financial aid.

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