Gasiorowski, Laura K.

Laura K. Gasiorowski joined the Firm in 2005 and has been practicing criminal defense law since 1994. She has concentrated her career on complex appellate matters in a wide variety of state and federal criminal matters, such as mail fraud, money laundering, gambling, narcotics violations, murder, and RICO.  Most notably, Ms. Gasiorowski represented one of two capital defendants in the federal death penalty trial of individuals involved in the American Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Nairobi, Africa.

Ms. Gasiorowski was lead counsel in the penalty, or sentencing, phase of the state death penalty murder trial, State of Louisiana v. Leonard Williams, coordinating, preparing and presenting the defense's mitigation case.  In that case as well, the defendant was spared execution and received a life sentence. In addition to her criminal practice, Ms. Gasiorowski has also represented police officers in civil service hearings related to employment matters, and in civil rights and equal protection litigation in the federal courts as counsel for PANO, the Police Association of New Orleans.

Ms. Gasiorowski has specialized experience in pre-trial motion work, sentencing matters, and appellate brief writing.  Among her reported cases are Jenkins v. Artuz, 294 F.3d 284 (2nd Cir.2002), in which the court ordered a new trial based on evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in examining a state witness and State v. Bishop, 686 So.2d 1053, 96-694 (La.App. 5 Cir.1996), in which the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Louisiana agreed that application of sexual offender notification laws prohibited constituted ex post facto punishment and therefore was prohibited.  Other significant published cases decided in her clients' favor include the first case in which a federal district court in the United States has held that foreign subjects interrogated abroad by American law enforcement are entitled to Fifth Amendment protections and a case in which the district court struck several aggravating factors from death penalty notice.

Ms. Gasiorowski is admitted to the state bars in New York, New Jersey, and Louisiana.  She is also admitted to the United States District Court, District of New Jersey; the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and the United States District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana.