Senate confirms Jerome Gorgon as US attorney for Detroit

Melissa Nann Burke and Robert Snell, The Detroit News on Dec 11, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has confirmed veteran federal prosecutor Jerome Gorgon to serve as U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan, officially making him the top federal law enforcement official for Detroit.

Gorgon, a Detroit native and resident, has spent more than 15 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit. His confirmation by the full Senate on Thursday was part of a large bloc of nominees adopted by a party-line vote of 52-47.

His nomination by President Donald Trump had advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 9 by a vote of 10-2.

Gorgon's office this year has handled the case of the thwarted Halloween domestic terror attack on behalf of the Islamic State involving individuals from Dearborn; the Chinese scholars from the University of Michigan who have been charged with various crimes, including smuggling and the hacking case against former UM football coach Matt Weiss.

Gorgon's list of high-profile cases also includes Jibreel Pratt, a Detroit man who prosecutors say pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and the prosecution of people accused of turning the Victory Inn motel in Detroit into a bazaar of drugs and sex trafficking.

Gorgon's confirmation formalizes his role leading an office of about 114 prosecutors that covers about 6.5 million people on the eastern half of the state. He succeeds former U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison, who was appointed by President Joe Biden and whose time in office was marked by a historic decline in crime, shrinking caseloads and a drop in staff.

Gorgon was appointed in May by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as interim U.S. attorney pending his Senate confirmation.

He grew up in southwest Detroit, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1994 and taught elementary science at John A. Logan Elementary School in Detroit before graduating from UM law school in 2002. He was elected a member of the Corktown Citizens District Council in 1996.

He clerked for former federal judges Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit and Damon Keith in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After, Gorgon was a partner and associate at the Honigman law firm starting in 2004 before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in May 2010.

At Honigman, he practiced general commercial litigation for clients in the automotive, construction, and pharmaceutical industries and later focused on securities cases and regulatory investigations.

Gorgon's other notable prosecutions include racketeering conspiracy cases that led to the convictions of at least 13 members of Smokecamp, a violent street gang on the east side of Detroit, and seven leaders, members and associates of the northwest Detroit street gang Young and Skantless, or YNS.

In a questionnaire he completed for the Judiciary Committee, Gorgon estimated having prosecuted 17 to 18 jury trials to verdict, not including a case in which he served as chief counsel where all three defendants pleaded guilty after seven weeks at trial ― a reference to the YNS street gang case in which each of the three defendants were sentenced to 168 months in prison.

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