Pamela Chen is a federal district court judge in the Eastern District of New York. Since her appointment to the bench in March 2013, Judge Chen has presided over a wide array of civil and criminal cases, including a civil lawsuit challenging New York’s ban on the possession of nunchuks, the tax fraud prosecution of former U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm, and the RICO prosecution of FIFA soccer officials. Between September 1998 and March 2013, Judge Chen was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, except for a brief period in 2008, when she served as Deputy Commissioner for Enforcement in the New York State Division of Human Rights. During her tenure in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Judge Chen investigated and prosecuted cases involving terrorism, gang violence, drug trafficking, human trafficking, official misconduct, and civil rights crimes. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Judge Chen was a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, where she litigated matters relating to conditions of confinement for individuals in state and local institutions, as well as cases involving the enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances of 1994. Judge Chen began her legal career at the law firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., and also worked at Asbill, Junkin, Myers and Buffone in Washington, D.C. Judge Chen is a 1986 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center and obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.