A former chairwoman for the defunct Commission on Public Integrity and current Joint Commission on Public Ethics commissioner is joining the New York office of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, working alongside former top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Steve Cohen.

An announcement from the firm says Mitra Hormozi, a former chief of the organized crime unit for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, will work on behalf of clients facing regulatory investigations, potential criminal prosecutions and internal investigations.

Hormozi is also a former advisor to Cuomo and from his attorney general’s office led the investigation of Senate Majority Leader Pedro Esapda. Horomozi was appointed to the top post at the CPI under Cuomo and was later his appointments to the its successor ethics panel known as JCOPE.

Cohen, who worked with Cuomo in the AG’s office and was secretary to the governor in 2011, maintains close ties with the administration and occaisionally serves as a media surrogate.

The full announcement after the jump:

Mitra Hormozi, Former Chair of New York State Commission on Public Integrity, Joins Zuckerman Spaeder LLP
Zuckerman Spaeder LLP is pleased to announce that Mitra Hormozi, former chair of the New York State Commission on Public Integrity and former Chief of the Organized Crime Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, has joined the firm’s New York office. A former advisor to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Ms. Hormozi is a veteran trial attorney who brings years of government experience to her work on behalf of clients facing regulatory investigations, potential criminal prosecutions, internal investigations, and compliance matters. She has experience serving as a court-appointed monitor and special master, most recently overseeing the payment of damages to minority firefighter applicants. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York determined that New York City owed $128.7 million in back pay to minorities whose employment with the fire department had been either delayed or denied after they were required to take a test that was later found to be racially discriminatory. Ms. Hormozi is currently a commissioner on the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE).

Ms. Hormozi’s arrival continues Zuckerman Spaeder’s growth in New York, which most recently includes former federal judge Barbara S. Jones. The firm’s expansion is led by partner Steven M. Cohen, who served as the senior adviser to Gov. Cuomo, as well as Gov. Cuomo’s Counselor and Chief of Staff in the Attorney General’s Office. In the last 18 months, the office has added highly regarded New York litigators Paul Shechtman and Andrew E. Tomback. In 2012, James Sottile, a senior member of firm management, relocated to the New York office to participate in the growth of the office and the integration of new lawyers into the firm. The firm also added six associates to the office, including four former federal judicial clerks, a former senior advisor to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a former officer in the U.S. Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.

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