Biden names Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Provinzino as Minnesota's next federal judge

President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated as Minnesota's next federal judge a longtime federal prosecutor whose resume includes complex international sex trafficking cases and the recent prosecution of Republican agent Anton Lazzaro.

Biden chose Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Provinzino to replace Wilhelmina Wright, who retired earlier this year and was once a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court. The president chose Provinzino from a shortlist of candidates sent by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and assembled by a judicial selection committee chaired by former Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge Lucinda Jesson.

“She has a lot of leadership experience and has a very good heart, which is always good in a judge, as well as the experience to do the job,” Klobuchar said in an interview.

Born and raised in St. Cloud, Provinzino has spent her entire legal career in Minnesota, where she has served as a federal prosecutor since 2010. Last year, she received the Attorney General's David Margolis Award for Outstanding Service – the highest award awarded by the Ministry of Justice. Department to its employees – for continuing an international sex trafficking conspiracy based in Thailand that victimized hundreds of women.

“Laura Provinzino has spent her career serving Minnesotans, advancing justice and protecting the rule of law,” Smith said in a statement. “She will make an outstanding judge on the United States District Court and I want to congratulate her on her appointment.”

Provinzino, 48, was also one of three prosecutors who won a guilty verdict last year in the teenage sex trafficking trial of Lazzaro, a businessman and former Republican activist who was later convicted to 21 years in prison for charges involving five teenagers aged 15 to 16. year-old girls he paid to have sex with him.

“The fact that she has that experience handling these complex cases from money laundering to sex trafficking is going to be very helpful,” Klobuchar said. “I think it's a good argument for me to make to my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee that she most certainly has that experience that you need to be a federal judge.”

Provinzino served as a law clerk to Eighth Circuit Judge Diana Murphy from 2003 to 2004 and worked as an associate at Robins Kaplan before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota. His education includes a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University, and a BA with honors from Lewis and Clark College.

Biden nominated Provinzino alongside two other nominees to the federal district courts in Pennsylvania and California, respectively, on Wednesday. A White House statement said the selections reflected the president's “pledge to ensure that the nation's courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country – both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds “.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who tracks judicial selection nationally, said he thought Provinzino had a “very good chance of being confirmed this year.” The White House and Senate Democrats have publicly committed to confirming all pending nominees by the end of the year. Tobias said it's realistic that Provinzino's nomination will get a hearing in July and a possible vote by the fall.

Klobuchar called Provinzino “the right person for the moment” and noted that all of Minnesota's judicial nominees while Klobuchar was in office passed with bipartisan support. This will be crucial if Provinzino hopes to be confirmed before the November general election.

“I will find a way to get her confirmed,” Klobuchar said.