The Center for Reproductive Rights announced today the appointment of Sanford M. Cohen, a veteran civil rights prosecutor, as Deputy Director of the Domestic Legal Program. Mr. Cohen has held the top civil rights posts in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the New York State Attorney General’s Office.

For the last decade, Mr. Cohen was in the Civil Rights Litigation Section for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, serving as Chief from 1995 to 2003. He prosecuted criminal and civil cases involving law enforcement brutality, slave trafficking, sexual harassment, voting rights, and race, gender, national origin and disability discrimination. In addition to litigation, he was instrumental in major legislative and public education initiatives. He served as a member of U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno’s Hate Crimes Working Group, a national initiative to improve prosecutorial methods and broaden federal laws addressed to hate crimes.

Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Cohen served for 12 years in the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office, including as Chief from 1991 to 1995. During his tenure, he supervised a wide range of civil rights litigation and policy initiatives, including reproductive rights. He prosecuted Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry in civil and criminal cases in connection with his anti-choice activities and blockades of abortion clinics. Mr. Cohen represented New York in Rust v. Sullivan, a challenge to the "gag rule" prohibiting federally-funded family planning clinics from providing abortion counseling. He worked with congressional staff on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1993 and authored Supreme Court amicus briefs for New York in key abortion rights cases, including Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (1986), Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and National Organization of Women v. Scheidler (1994).

Some of Mr. Cohen’s other notable cases include: U.S. v. Paoletti, involving a criminal ring that lured deaf Mexicans into the U.S. with promises of good jobs and enslaved them as peddlers; U.S. v. Velazquez, prosecuting jail guards’ deadly assault on an inmate; U.S. v. Grohs, prosecuting racially motivated assault of Latino youths at a Long Island restaurant; U.S. v. Wright, prosecuting a highway patrol officer who detained female motorists and compelled them to disrobe; US v. County of Nassau, challenging a racially discriminatory property tax assessment system; US v. Hayes, prosecuting an ex-husband under the Violence Against Women Act; Harrison and Burrowes Bridge Contractors v. Cuomo, defending New York’s minority and women’s business development requirements; City of New York v. Department of Commerce, challenging the disproportionate undercount of minorities in the 1990 census; Support Ministries for Persons with AIDS v. Waterford, challenging as handicap discrimination a village’s zoning exclusion of a care facility for persons living with AIDS; People v. Merlino, prosecuting sexual harassment by a real estate broker under the Fair Housing Act of 1968; and People v. Hamilton, establishing that sexual harassment of job applicants is unlawful sex discrimination under New York’s Human Rights Law.

In 1998 and 2000, Mr. Cohen received a Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney from the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1994, he received the United States Supreme Court Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General.

Mr. Cohen is a graduate of Rutgers University Law School and Columbia University.