Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme will take over as the chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue announced in a recent staffwide email.

DuCharme has been with the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office since 2008, and most recently served as chief of the office's national security and cybercrime section. He replaces the former criminal section chief, James Gatta.

“During his time in the office, Seth has made substantial contributions to the growth of our terrorism, espionage, export control and cyber practices and worked closely with other sections in instances where national security and cyber issues were implicated,” Donoghue said.

The U.S. attorney noted a number of DuCharme's professional highlights. As a trial prosecutor in United States v. Hasbajrami, DuCharme was one of the first in the nation to defend the government's use of evidence gathered by warrantless surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. DuCharme handled numerous other terrorism-related cases, winning convictions in United States v. Ahmed and other cases, Donoghue said.

In his most recent position, DuCharme was “instrumental in the development and growth of the office's cybercrime practice,” Donoghue said, both in prosecuting cases, as well as through the implementation of “strategies to work with law enforcement partners, victims, subject matter experts and the private sector.” The U.S. attorney noted that DuCharme scored a conviction in United States v. Hunter, one of the Eastern District's first prosecutions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Among a number of other distinctions, Donoghue noted DuCharme previously received an Executive Office for United States Attorneys Director's award for pioneering a disruption and early engagement project aimed at people on the path toward violent extremism.

Before joining the Brooklyn office, DuCharme was a deputy U.S. marshal, clerked for the U.S. District Judge Richard Owen of the Southern District of New York and was an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, according to Donoghue.