The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Frederick Lacey.md

category	aliases	tags	summary	born	died	location	relations	created	updated
Law Enforcement & Legal	Frederick B. Lacey Frederick Bernard Lacey	Person Judge FISACourt BNL Iraqgate	New Jersey prosecutor and federal judge, one of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's first judges, whom William Barr named in 1992 to review the BNL-Iraq case and who cleared the Justice Department.	1920-09-09	2017-04-01	Newark, New Jersey	type with role start end fn member_of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge 1979 1985 1 type with start fn investigated Brent Scowcroft 1992 5 type with start fn investigated Lawrence Eagleburger 1992 5 type with start fn prosecuted Albert Anastasia 1954 2	2026-09-22	2026-09-23

Frederick Bernard Lacey was born in Newark, New Jersey, on September 9, 1920, the son of the city's police chief, and studied at Rutgers and Cornell Law School; he served in the Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. As an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey he led the case that sent Albert Anastasia to prison for income-tax evasion in 1954. Richard Nixon made him U.S. attorney for New Jersey in 1969; he prosecuted Newark's mayor, Hugh Addonizio, Jersey City's mayor, Thomas Whalen, the Hudson County boss John V. Kenny and Mafia figures, and with his successor, Herbert Stern, convicted three dozen officials within four years. Nixon appointed him a district judge in 1970; he served until 1986 and sat on the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals from 1978 and on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 1979 to 1985. After retiring he joined LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby and MacRae, served as special master over the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and in 2006 was federal monitor of Bristol-Myers Squibb over the drug Plavix. He died in Naples, Florida, on April 1, 2017.¹²

The BNL Investigation

Attorney General William Barr declined to seek an independent counsel in the BNL Scandal affair and on October 16, 1992, appointed Lacey as "independent counsel" under Justice Department regulations rather than under the statute. Lacey's report states that on October 27 Barr authorized a preliminary investigation and asked for a report by December 8, 1992; the Senate staff record that Lacey submitted it on December 9, 1992.³ He wrote: "I find Judge Shoob's specific charges against the USAO, and his concern about the interference of other agencies, to be inaccurate,"⁴ rejecting the criticisms of Judge Marvin Shoob. Of Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, he wrote: "It is clear that, while at Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft and Eagleburger came into contact with Banca Nazionale del Lavoro management. I have seen nothing, however, to suggest that they knew of BNL-Atlanta's wrongful loans to Iraq or influenced the prosecution of this matter." The second part of the report was classified.⁵ Lacey also addressed the appointment of Joseph D. Whitley, writing that Whitley became acting United States attorney on June 1, 1990, and verbally recused himself from the BNL case the same day, a recusal confirmed in writing a week later.⁶ According to The Village Voice, the report dismissed the allegations as "arrogant nonsense," while Lacey acknowledged that he could not determine "who at Justice saw what and when" and was "unable to penetrate with any precision where responsibility lay."⁷ Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, chairman of the House Banking Committee, told the House on January 21, 1993, that "from the start it was apparent that Judge Lacey was nothing more than a lackey," called the report "the Lacey Job," and said that "at best" it was a whitewash.⁸

Footnotes

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1. Federal Judicial Center, "Lacey, Frederick Bernard," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/lacey-frederick-bernard ↩︎

2. Historical Society of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, "Frederick Bernard Lacey." https://www.historynjdc.org/judges/judicial-biographies/frederick-bernard-lacey ; "'French Connection' Judge Dies at 96," Associated Press, via Governing, April 2017. ↩︎

3. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair, Committee Print S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, pp. 4-5; Lacey, "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," printed in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 344-345. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf ↩︎

4. Lacey, Report of the Independent Counsel, printed in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Serial No. 103-95 (1994), p. 473. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit ↩︎

5. Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 103-95, 1993, pp. 514-15. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit ↩︎

6. Lacey, "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," printed in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Serial No. 103-95 (1994), pp. 514-515. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit ↩︎

7. "Will We Ever Learn the Truth About Iraqgate?" The Village Voice, reprinted November 2, 2020. ↩︎

8. Gonzalez, Henry B. "Update on BNL Investigation," Congressional Record, House, January 21, 1993. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1993_cr/h930121-bnl.htm ↩︎