Leonie Brinkema

Early life and education

Brinkema was Leonie Milhomme in Teaneck, New Jersey, and was raised in Teaneck, Englewood and Tenafly, where she attended Tenafly High School. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers University in 1966 and a Master of Library and Information Science from the same institution in 1970. She earned a Juris Doctor from Cornell Law School in 1976.

Career

She worked in the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section 1976–1977, and then the United States Attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia, Criminal Division from 1977 to 1983. From 1983 to 1984, she returned to the Criminal Division and worked as a sole practitioner from 1984 to 1985.

Federal judicial service

Brinkema was a United States Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia from 1985 to 1993.

On August 6, 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Brinkema to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia vacated by Judge Albert Vickers Bryan Jr. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 18, 1993, and received her commission on October 20, 1993. She took up her post on October 23, 1993.

Notable rulings

• Brinkema presided over RTC v. Lerma et al. (1995), a case that involved the reproduction of materials owned by the Church of Scientology. Brinkema found for the defendants in most of the claims, and awarded minimum damages of $2,500 for copyright infringement, citing the "increasingly vitriolic rhetoric" of Religious Technology Center (RTC)'s legal filings.

• On October 28, 2003, she sentenced al-Qaeda operative Iyman Faris to twenty years imprisonment for providing material support to the group.

• In 2006, Brinkema presided over the case of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. When she asked about the videotapes showing the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the government denied their existence. As she sentenced Moussaoui to life in a supermax prison, she told him: "You came here to be a martyr and to die in a great big bang of glory, but to paraphrase the poet T. S. Eliot, instead, you will die with a whimper. The rest of your life you will spend in prison." Mr. Moussaoui began to respond, but Judge Brinkema continued. "You will never again get a chance to speak," she said, "and that is an appropriate and fair ending."

• On April 2, 2009, Brinkema weighed in on the question of whether terrorist detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could be prosecuted in the civilian justice system.{{Cite web |url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hRuUIt0juYc3OxlGylbMUyYhuJfAD97AI1I80

• In 2011, she presided over the fraud trial of Lee Farkas, CEO of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker. During his sentencing hearing on June 30, 2011, she said that she did not observe any genuine remorse, and sentenced the 58-year-old Farkas to 30 years in federal prison. She ordered Farkas and six others to pay a total of about US$3.5 billion in restitution.

• She was the judge dealing with CIA officer John Kiriakou's whistleblower case, where she sentenced him to 30 months.

• On January 28, 2017, she was the second to order a stay of an executive order by President Donald Trump, which restricted immigration into the United States and prevented the return of green-card holders and others. Although the order issued was a temporary restraining order, it blocked the removal of any green-card holders being detained at Dulles International Airport for seven days. Brinkema's action also ordered that lawyers have access to those held there because of the president's ban.

• On March 28, 2025, Brinkema ordered the release of a Venezuelan couple who received temporary protected status after illegally crossing the border in 2022, but who were arrested in front of their children by ICE on March 21, which sparked fears that the Trump administration was again willing to separate families as part of its immigration initiatives. Brinkema rejected the description of the woman that Erik Weiss, an assistant director of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Washington, had offered in a court filing, in which he called her an "affiliate" of the gang and later as a "senior member," which Brinkema said was solely on account of her being married to a member of that gang. Brinkema stated, "Is somebody an affiliate because he or she is married to a member of the gang?" She later questioned how the government could describe her as such, or as a threat to public safety, stating, "This is a terrible, terrible affidavit." Brinkema said that Weiss's assertion was "pure hearsay," "assumptions," and constituted "putting words in people's mouths," and told the Trump administration's attorney, "If this was a criminal case, I'd throw you out of my chambers."

• On April 17, 2025, she ruled that Google illegally monopolized online advertising markets. She found Google liable for "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers.

References

References

1. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000024131360&view=1up&seq=254 Confirmation hearings on federal appointments: hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Third Congress, first session on confirmations of appointees to the federal judiciary.]
2. Goldman, Jessica. [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moussaoui-judge-minces-no-words/ "Moussaoui Judge Minces No Words"], ''[[CBS News]]'', March 13, 2006. Accessed May 26, 2010.
3. Dwyer, Timothy. [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-record-leonie-brinkema-of-teaneck-e/159794053/ "Moussaoui judge no mere bench warmer"], ''[[The Record (North Jersey). The Record]]'', March 20, 2006. Accessed November 26, 2024, via [[Newspapers.com]]. "Right off the bat, Brinkema, who was born in Teaneck and grew up in North Jersey, made it clear to the defense and prosecution how things were going to proceed.... The family lived in Teaneck, Englewood and Tenafly as she grew up, said her brother, Alexander Milhomme, 59, a Closter resident."
4. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/14mbkxUe-HFnzTXyPRCeb-L4Q9hTbkDzP/view#page=7 ''Program for the Thirty-Third Annual Concert''], New Jersey All-State Concert, November 11, 1961. Accessed November 26, 2024. "Soprano I... Milhomme, Leonie - Tenafly"
5. {{FJC Bio
6. Lichtblau, Eric. (2003-10-29). "Trucker Sentenced to 20 Years in Plot Against Brooklyn Bridge". [[The New York Times]].
7. Goodman, Amy. (December 10, 2007). "Did CIA Destroy Tapes Showing Waterboarding and Involvement of Psychologists in Torture?". [[Democracy Now!]].
8. Weiser, Benjamin. (July 5, 2010). "Tirade Offers Insight on Would-Be Times Sq. Bomber". [[The New York Times]].
9. Protess, Ben. (June 30, 2011). "Mortgage Executive Receives 30-Year Sentence". [[The New York Times]].
10. Macias, Amanda. (March 21, 2014). "The Only CEO Prosecuted For The Mortgage Crisis Is Someone You've Never Heard Of, And Feels Like A 'Zombie' In Prison". [[Business Insider Australia]].
11. Gerstein, Josh. (January 25, 2013). "Ex-CIA officer sentenced in leak case".
12. (2017-01-29). "Judge halts deportations as refugee ban causes worldwide furor". The Washington Post.
13. Salvador Rizzo. (2025-03-28). "Judge releases detained Venezuelan couple with temporary protected status". [[The Washington Post]].
14. Hampton, Daniel. (2025-03-28). "'I'd throw you out of my chambers': Trump attorneys get scathing rebuke as couple detained".
15. Salvador Rizzo. (March 21, 2025). "Venezuelan couple detained again by ICE after judge ordered their release". [[The Washington Post]].
16. Godoy, Jody. (April 17, 2025). "Google holds illegal monopolies in ad tech, US judge finds".