Edgardo Ramos (born 1960) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

Early life and education

Born in

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...

, Ramos moved as a child with his mother and six siblings to

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area. He earned a

Bachelors of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 1982 from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

and a Juris Doctor in 1987 from Harvard Law School.

Professional career

From 1987 until 1992, Ramos worked in private legal practice as an associate with

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is an international white shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm specializes in litigation and corporate practices, particularly mergers and acquisitions, with over 1,000 attorneys in 11 offices w ...

. From 1992 until 2002, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, where he prosecuted cases involving "white-collar fraud, narcotics trafficking, labor racketeering, public corruption, and money laundering." He also served as deputy chief of the Narcotics section. From 2002 until his appointment as a district court judge, Ramos was a partner with the law firm Day Pitney LLP. He also served as a commissioner on the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption.

Federal judicial service

On May 4, 2011, U.S. President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

nominated Ramos to a seat on the

that had been vacated by Judge

Stephen C. Robinson Stephen Craig Robinson (born 1957) is a former United States federal judge, United States District Judge who served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 2003 to 2010. Early life and education Robinson was ...

, who resigned in 2010. On September 15, 2011, the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...

reported his nomination to the Senate floor by a voice vote. The Senate confirmed his nomination on December 5, 2011, by a 89–0 vote. He received his commission on December 6, 2011.

Notable rulings

*On December 3, 2018, Ramos ruled that the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...

did not have the authority to withhold public safety grants from sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate in immigration enforcement and that the conditions unlawfully violate the separation of powers and were arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. On February 26, 2020, a panel of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

unanimously overturned the decision stating, in part, that the conditions defined in the policy "help the federal government enforce national immigration laws and policies supported by successive Democratic and Republican administrations." *On May 22, 2019, Ramos affirmed the validity of

subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...

s issued to

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

and

Capital One Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the li ...

by two committees of the U.S. House of Representatives. The subpoenas asked for financial records relating to President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

, his adult children, and his businesses. Trump's lawyers had asked Ramos to quash the subpoenas, but Ramos said such a request was "unlikely to succeed on the merits." On May 28, Ramos granted Trump's attorneys their request for a

stay Stay may refer to: Places * Stay, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the US Law * Stay of execution, a ruling to temporarily suspend the enforcement of a court judgment * Stay of proceedings, a ruling halting further legal process in a tri ...

so they could pursue an expedited appeal through the courts.

Controversies

Ramos came under ethical scrutiny for allegedly violating the Judicial Code of Conduct by failing to disclose financial conflicts of interests in matters he presided over. In September 2021, the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' published an article reporting that more than 131 federal judges had violated their ethical obligations by presiding over matters where they had a financial interest. Ramos was prominently highlighted in the ''Wall Street Journal'' piece for presiding over a lawsuit between Exxon Mobil and TIG Insurance Co. over a pollution dispute, while he owned upwards of $50,000 of Exxon stock. Ramos ruled in favor of Exxon Mobil, ordering TIG Insurance Co. to pay Exxon Mobil $28 million in damages as well as $8 million in interest. Ramos again came under controversy in March 2022, when he failed to disclose a financial interest in a case he was presiding over. Investors had sued major banks, including Barclays and HSBC, accusing them of rigging the foreign bond market. Ramos dismissed the investors' complaint. It was later revealed that he held stock in one of the defendant banks. He subsequently recused himself from the matter, which was taken over by Judge Valerie E. Caproni; she reconsidered the dismissal of the investors' complaint against the banks and allowed the case to proceed.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramos, Edgardo 1960 births Living people Assistant United States Attorneys Attorneys from Ponce Harvard Law School alumni Hispanic and Latino American judges Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Simpson Thacher & Bartlett associates United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama Yale University alumni 21st-century American judges