Paul A. Crotty

Paul Austin Crotty (born April 1, 1941) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Early in his career, he worked as a lawyer at Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine,

Crotty received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1962 and a Bachelor of Laws from Cornell Law School in 1967.

He was also in the United States Navy Reserve from 1962 to 1968.

Career He was a law clerk to Judge Lloyd Francis MacMahon of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1967 to 1969.

Notable rulings

In April 2014, he ruled on a federal case involving caps on contributions to independent political-action committees in New York. In the case, he ruled the state's $150,000 limit on individual donations to the "super PACs" could be held in light of the 2010 Citizens United ruling.

In 2018, in response to a 2017 immigration change by the Trump administration, he ruled that "the government acted unlawfully by requiring unaccompanied immigrant children to remain detained until an agency's director personally approved their release, a process that delayed their freedom and caused suffering." He also granted class-action status to the legal action that civil rights lawyers for the New York Civil Liberties Union had filed on behalf of one child. According to the NYCLU, about 700 children had been subject to the policy that Crotty struck down, with some detained for over a year.

Also in 2018, he ruled against the detainment by ICE of a pizza delivery man, who had been arrested while delivering food to a Brooklyn army base. He granted a stay of deportation while the man pursued permanent residency.

In 2020, he presided on Melendez v. Sirius XM Radio Inc, a lawsuit by John Melendez of the Howard Stern show against SiriusXM, dismissing it in June 2021.

After overseeing the original trial, in 2020, he oversaw the retrial of a former CIA software engineer, Joshua Schulte, accused of leaking secrets through WikiLeaks, in an espionage case. In 2020, he allowed the defendant to represent himself.

In 2022, he was the judge in a case challenging New York Mayor Eric Adams' plan to take mentally ill homeless people to hospitals against their will.

In May 2022, as Senior U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty of the Southern District of New York, he granted an injunction to the Upsolve legal advice program, arguing their right to offer legal advice was likely protected by the First Amendment. In 2023, he oversaw the sexual lawsuit case against Cuba Gooding Junior, which was settled before going to trial.

Personal life As of 1984, he lived in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan.