Michael J. Garcia

Michael J. Garcia is the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Garcia was the prosecutor in charge of the federal investigation against the former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer.

A political^[1] appointee of the Bush Administration, Mr. Garcia is previously credited with some of the most important cases against international terrorists.

Garcia attended Valley Stream Central High School in New York and is a graduate of Binghamton University. He received his Master of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and his Juris Doctor from Albany Law School.

On April 13, 2013, in retaliation for the U.S. sanctioning 18 Russian citizens under the Magnitsky Act for their role in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Russia blacklisted 18 Americans from entering the country, including Garcia for his role in the arrest and prosecution of Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death."^[2]

Garcia was appointed the head of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee of the governing body of world football, FIFA, in July 2012.^[3] Garcia completed a report into allegations of corruption in world football for FIFA,^[4] and has criticized the decision not to publish the report.^[5]

Following the decision of the Fifa Appeals Panel to deny his appeal against Joachim Eckert's summary of the report, he resigned as independent ethics investigator for Fifa on 17 December 2014.^[6] Two days later, Fifa agreed to release a "legally appropriate version" of his report.^[7]

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