Matthew Bogdanos
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| Matthew Bogdanos | |
|---|---|
 Speaking at Don Bosco High School Commencement in 2006 |
Col. Matthew Bogdanos has been an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan since 1988. A colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, middleweight boxer, author, and native New Yorker, he was raised waiting tables in his family’s Greek restaurant in lower Manhattan. He was graduated cum laude, receiving a Phi Beta Kappa award, with honors in Classics, from Bucknell University in 1980. He also holds a Recognition of Achievement in International Law from the Parker School of International Law in 1982, a law degree and a master’s degree in Classics from Columbia University in 1984, and a master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College in 2004.
Commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps in 1980, he later attended, and was graduated with honors as a Judge Advocate from, the Naval Justice School in 1984. He was then stationed in North Carolina, promoted to Captain, and appointed a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. Released from active duty in 1988, he joined the New York County District Attorney’s Office under Robert M. Morgenthau, rising to Senior Trial Counsel in 1996. New York tabloids call him “pit bull" for his relentless prosecution of hundreds of criminals such as the 15-year-old “Baby-Faced Butchers” for their 1997 grisly Central Park murder and rappers Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Jamal “Shyne” Barrows for their highly publicized 1999 shootout in Club New York.
Remaining in the Marine Reserves between 1988 and 2001, he was recalled for Desert Storm, and in 1996, then-Major Bogdanos led a Joint Task Force-6 counter-narcotics operation on the Mexican border. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1998, he thereafter served on military exercises and operations in South Korea, Lithuania, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kosovo. Recalled to active duty in the Marines after being forced to evacuate his apartment near the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, he joined a multi-agency, special-forces task force in Afghanistan, received a Bronze Star for his actions in obtaining intelligence on Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, and was promoted to Colonel. He then served in the Horn of Africa and multiple tours in Iraq as the head of that same multi-agency task force, searching for evidence of terrorist networks and terrorist financing.[1]
During his first tour in Iraq in 2003, and acting largely on his own initiative, he led the investigation into the April 2003 looting of the National Museum of Iraq. As of early 2007, almost 6000 stolen antiquities had been recovered in eight countries. Exposing the link between the trafficking in stolen antiquities and terrorist financing, he has delivered speeches in a dozen countries throughout the world in venues ranging from universities, museums, and private clubs, to governmental organizations, law-enforcement agencies, Interpol, and members of both houses of the British Parliament. He urges a more active role for international organizations, private foundations, governments, and the art community in combating what he calls the global criminal enterprise that is pillaging the world’s cultural heritage.
Upon his return from Iraq, he was assigned to the National Defense University to assist in developing the U.S. government’s first executive-branch-wide, operational-level interagency training program. Released back into the Marine Reserves in October 2005, he returned to the District Attorney’s Office, was promoted to Senior Investigative Counsel, and continues the hunt for stolen antiquities.
He boxes for the New York City Police Department’s Widows and Children’s Fund (with an amateur record of 23-3) and was included in a book covering the two dozen “great opening and closing arguments of the last 100 years.” In addition to numerous military decorations, he is the recipient of the 2004 Public Service Award from the Hellenic Lawyers of America, the 2006 Distinguished Leadership Award from the Washington DC Historical Society, and a 2005 National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush for his work recovering Iraq’s treasures.
[edit] Publications
• Joint Interagency Coordination Groups: The First Step, Joint Force Quarterly, March 2005[2]
• Casualties of War: Truth and the Iraq Museum,” American Journal of Archaeology, April 2005[3]
• “The Terrorist in the Art Gallery,” New York Times Op-Ed, December 10, 2005[4]
• Interagency Operations: The Marine Specialty of this Century, Marine Corps Gazette, March 2006
• “Fighting for Iraq’s Culture,” New York Times Op-Ed, March 6, 2007[5]
- 'Thieves of Baghdad', One Marine’s Passion to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures, is his first-hand account of his journey to recover Iraq’s lost treasures. His royalties from the sale of the book go to the Iraq Museum. Bloomsbury USA (October 26, 2005)
