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Biography
Eric Nicholas Vitaliano (born February 27, 1948 in Staten Island, New York) is a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Judge Vitaliano received a B.A. from Fordham College in 1968 and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law in 1971. After law school, Vitaliano clerked for United States District Judge Mark A. Constantino of the Eastern District of New York, and worked for seven years for the prestigious Manhattan law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. From 1979 to 1981 he served as Chief of Staff to Congressman John M. Murphy.
He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1983 to 2001, sitting in the 185th, 186th, 187th, 188th, 189th, 190th, 191st, 192nd, 193rd and 194th New York State Legislatures. In 1997, he ran for Congress in 13th District, but was defeated by Republican Vito Fossella.
In November 2001, Vitaliano was elected to the New York City Civil Court. In 2005, he was recommended to the Eastern District bench by Senator Charles Schumer. Vitaliano was officially nominated to the court by President George W. Bush on October 6, 2005, to the seat vacated by Arthur D. Spatt, confirmed by the United States Senate on December 21, 2005, and received his commission on January 19, 2006.
In July 2011, wide attention came to his injunction that essentially nullified a set of decisions by the federal, state and city governments over the last years, which had removed two historic buildings from classification as federally designated parkland. One, the Tobacco Warehouse, a Civil War-era structure in Dumbo, was on the verge of conversion to the new home of Brooklyn's leading theater company. Judge Vitaliano held it was “crystal clear” that the National Park Service and others had exceeded their authority.