Alvin K. Hellerstein, a Manhattan federal judge who handled significant cases including those involving President Donald Trump, former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the 9/11 attacks, has died. He was 92.
Hellerstein died Wednesday, according to Edward Friedland, district executive for the Southern District of New York federal courts. A cause of death was not immediately provided.
Appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, Hellerstein served as a district judge until moving to senior status in 2011. Prior to his federal service, he was part of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and practiced law in Manhattan.
In the years following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hellerstein oversaw numerous wrongful death, injury, and property damage lawsuits. This two-decade-long effort significantly shaped his legacy, with lawyers noting his empathy toward victims and their families, including meetings in his chambers and rejections of settlement offers he deemed insufficient. However, some were critical when he ended an effort in 2008 to continue searching for human remains in debris from ground zero moved to a Staten Island landfill.
Hellerstein was known for his independent streak and strict courtroom discipline. Notably, he required spectators to wear pandemic-era masks for more than two years after other judges had dropped the practice.
In one of his final significant rulings in August, Hellerstein denied Donald Trump's attempt to have his state court hush money conviction moved to federal court and dismissed on presidential immunity grounds. This was the third time Hellerstein had rejected Trump's requests to move the case, following the initial indictment in March 2023 and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered Hellerstein to reconsider his prior decision, stating he had erred by not considering relevant issues. However, the appellate judges did not rule on the merits of Trump's request.
In 2020, Hellerstein ordered the release of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer, from home confinement. He ruled that the Justice Department's action to revoke Cohen's confinement to prevent him from publishing a book or speaking to the media was retaliatory and violated the First Amendment.
Earlier in his career, in 2015, Hellerstein garnered attention for ordering a New York City cable company to pay $229,500 to a Texas woman after finding the company had made 153 robocalls to her phone.