Former MTA watchdog named first assistant U.S. attorney for LI cases

Attorney Carolyn Pokorny, who has served as the MTA's internal watchdog and as deputy chief of staff and counselor to former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, has taken a leadership role in the U.S. Attorney's Office that handles Long Island prosecutions, authorities announced Monday.

Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney Breon Peace named Pokorny to serve as his office's first assistant U.S. attorney, where she will oversee the criminal, civil, appeals and administrative divisions.

Pokorny, 52, had been the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's inspector general since 2019. In that role, she worked to help curb overtime abuse — chiding MTA management last January for not fully instituting reform recommendations from more than a year earlier.

A 2019 inquiry by her office found some MTA managers relied on the "honor system" to keep track of employees' hours due to an unreliable system to verify attendance. Pokorny's office also joined with federal prosecutors to probe potential MTA overtime fraud, leading to a 2021 federal indictment of five Long Island Rail Road personnel or past employees.

In 2020, Pokorny said in a watchdog report that the LIRR's train derailment response plan had "no clear direction" about who was in charge after a serious accident and allowed employees to leave the scene before tests for drugs and alcohol. The findings followed a 2016 derailment in New Hyde Park in which more than 30 passengers were hurt.

Pokorny went to the MTA job after working as special counsel for public integrity for former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Before that, she served under Lynch and also previously spent 14 years as an Eastern District prosecutor, when she held leadership positions that included being chief of the office's Narcotics Section.

In that role, Pokorny spearheaded a national strategy for prosecuting the leaders of Mexico's most powerful cocaine cartels and led a probe that ended with the convictions of more than 30 members of Colombia's top cocaine cartel, according to Eastern District officials.

The Brooklyn Law School graduate also worked in the past as a prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney's Office and as a clerk for the late U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt, according to her employer.

In a statement, Peace called Pokorny "a proven leader" who "brings a wealth of knowledge and experience" and "impeccable judgment and the utmost integrity" to his office. Pokorny said she is "humbled" to serve under Peace's leadership and called it thrilling to rejoin her former professional home.