Colleen McMahon

Education and career

Born in Columbus, Ohio, McMahon received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio State University in 1973 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1976. She was in private practice in New York City from 1976 to 1995, except for a period from 1979 to 1980 when she was a speechwriter and special assistant to Donald McHenry, the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations. She was a Judge of the New York Court of Claims, New York Supreme Court, from 1995 to 1998.

Federal judicial service

On May 21, 1998, McMahon was nominated by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by John F. Keenan. McMahon was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 21, 1998, and received her commission the next day. She became Chief Judge on June 1, 2016.

Notable cases

Among the cases over which she has presided is a defamation case brought by Drug Enforcement Administration agents against the makers of the film American Gangster, which was alleged to have portrayed such agents as being corrupt.

She was also the Judge in the case of the so-called Newburgh four involving FBI agent Robert Fuller who was the handler of the informant in the case, Shahed Hussain. In that case, at sentencing she pointed out that the FBI played a key role. She said: "It created acts of terrorism out of his fantasies of bravado and bigotry, and then made those fantasies come true." And she added: "Only the government could have made a terrorist out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope."