Partner
Joseph V. DeMarco

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Joseph V. DeMarco specializes in representing and counseling clients on complex issues involving information privacy and security, theft of intellectual property, computer intrusions, on-line fraud, employee malfeasance and crisis management and response. His years of experience in private practice and in government handling the most difficult and sensitive investigations brought by the United States Attorney's Office have made him one of the nation's leading experts on Internet crime and the law relating to emerging technologies.

From 1997 to 2007, Mr. DeMarco was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he founded and headed the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIPs) Program, a group of five prosecutors dedicated to investigating and prosecuting violations of federal cybercrime laws and intellectual property offenses. Under his leadership, CHIPs prosecutions grew from a trickle in 1997 to a top priority of the United States Attorney's Office, encompassing all forms of criminal activity affecting e-commerce and critical infrastructures including computer hacking and sabotage crimes; transmission of Internet worms and viruses; web-based frauds; theft of trade secrets; cyberstalking; and copyright and trademark infringement. As a recognized expert in the field, Mr. DeMarco was frequently asked to counsel prosecutors and law enforcement agents regarding novel investigative techniques and methodologies, and regularly provided advice concerning the Office's most sensitive computer-related investigations. Mr. DeMarco also served as a visiting Trial Attorney at the Department of Justice Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section in Washington, D.C., where he focused on technology-related policy matters such as Internet privacy, international cyber-investigations, e-commerce, identity theft, and the electronic theft of intellectual property.

Mr. DeMarco is also a seasoned crisis manager. In the days and weeks following September 11, 2001, he was responsible for coordinating the U.S. Attorney's Office support for the New York Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force's investigation into the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Since 2002 Mr. DeMarco has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches the Internet and Computer Crimes seminar. He has spoken throughout the United States as well as in Egypt, Italy and the Netherlands on cybercrime, e-commerce and copyright and trademark infringement. He has also lectured at Harvard Law School and in numerous other fora including the Practicing Law Institute, the National Advocacy Center and the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He has been interviewed on the subject of cybercrime in a number of media outlets including the Journal of the New York State Bar Association (cover story on cybercrime), ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and Fox News America's Newsroom with Bill Hemmer.

Prior to joining the United States Attorney's Office, Mr. DeMarco was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he concentrated on antitrust, securities and intellectual property law for high-technology clients. Mr. DeMarco served as law clerk to the Honorable J. Daniel Mahoney, United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. DeMarco speaks conversational Italian. Mr. DeMarco is a Knight of Malta. Mr. DeMarco has received numerous professional awards including the U.S. Department of Justice Director's Award for Superior Performance and the Lawyer of Integrity Award from the Institute for Jewish Humanities. In his spare time, he is involved in various mentoring programs for young professionals and enjoys playing golf and squash and listening to classical piano.

• Conducted comprehensive privacy and security assessment for major international retail corporation.

• Investigated large scale e-book piracy scheme and referred matter to law enforcement for prosecution.

• Litigated data breach claims brought by victims of data breach against company where data was stored.

• Supervised investigation and conducted analysis regarding potential liability in cases involving lost laptops or compromised computer systems containing large amounts of personal and sensitive information.

• Counseled global corporation regarding risks associated with development and use of internal employee social networking site.

• Advised telecommunications provider regarding internal anti-fraud program and compliance with federal wiretap act.

• Supervised numerous internal investigations related to employee use of corporate computer systems for illegal purposes or storage of contraband on company servers.

• Served as expert witness in foreign litigation concerning the legality of Internet gambling under U.S. federal law.

• United States v. Jay Cohen, 260 F.3d 68 (2001): first criminal prosecution of Internet gambling bookmaker under the Wire Wager Act.

• United States v. John Zuccarini, 03 Cr. 1459 (MBM): first criminal prosecution under the Truth In Domain Names Act against cyber-squatter who registered thousands of domain names consisting of common misspellings of popular domains registered to commercial and entertainment figures and who earned click revenue by directing Internet traffic to websites which offered pornography.

• United States v. Ira Chilowitz, et al., 07 Cr. 80 (JFK): prosecution of Morgan Stanley Prime Brokerage consultant and sales representative for theft of proprietary and confidential prime brokerage client rate information.

• United States v. Adrian Lamo, 04 Cr. 11 (NRB): prosecution of infamous computer hacker for illegally accessing private computer systems belonging to the New York Times.

• United States v. Raymond Blum, 02 Cr. 1405 (KTD): prosecution of former system administrator who hacked into his employers' computer network to send threatening e-mails through the network to corporate managers who fired him.

• United States v. Juju Jiang, 03 Cr. 518 (RCC): prosecution of defendant who surreptitiously loaded keylogging software onto publicly-accessible computer terminals at Kinko's outlets in order to record and steal customer bank account passwords.

• United States v. Said Farraj, 00 Cr. 1200 (VM): prosecution of paralegal at a major New York City law firm who stole firm's trial plan in a mass-tort case and then attempted to sell trial plan to opposing litigation counsel.

• IBM v. KCCP Computer Inc. et al.: Temporary Restraining Order and Permanent Injunction obtained against computer reseller engaged in infringing trademark protected computer memory modules.

• IBM v. Comdisco, et al.: Lanham Act litigation directed against computer leasing company engaged in unlawful computer chip reconfiguration.

• Search Engines: Safe Harbor for Sponsored Gambling Ads, World Online Gambling Report, March 2009.

• Internet Gambling and Secondary Liability: Understanding the Contours of Criminal Liability, NYSBA Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal, No. 1, 19, 2008.

• Assessing Liability of Social Networking Sites, World Online Gambling Report, October 2007.

• It's Not Just Fun and "War Games" - Juveniles and Computer Crime, 49 U.S. Attorney's Bulletin, No. 3, 48, May 2001.

• Gambling Against Enforcement - Internet Sports Books and the Wire Wager Act, 49 U.S. Attorney's Bulletin, No. 2, 33, March 2001.

• A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Courthouse: Mens Rea, Document Destruction and The Federal Obstruction Of Justice Statute, 67 N.Y.U. L. Rev., 570, 1992.