Ken Karas was appointed United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York on June 30, 2004, and entered duty on September 7, 2004. He graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. degree in 1986, and received a J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1991.
Upon graduating from law school, Judge Karas served as a law clerk to the Hon. Reena Raggi, then United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York. Thereafter, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1992 until 2001, and Chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Unit from 2001until his departure from the office in June 2004.
While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Judge Karas worked on numerous terrorism investigations into associates of several terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, Hamas, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and the IRA. He was part of the team of prosecutors who in 2001 convicted four of Usama Bin Laden’s followers for their role in the August 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. He also participated in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui who pled guilty to being part of several conspiracies that involved the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Judge Karas has been the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award and the John Marshall Award from the Justice Department, the Agency Seal Medallion from the Central Intelligence Agency, and was named the Federal Law Enforcement Association’s Prosecutor of the Year.
In 2022, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Karas to be on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Alien Terrorist Removal Court.
Judge Karas is a member of the Federal Bar Council, the Board of Directors for the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues, the Advisory Committee for the NYC Urban Debate League and has been a volunteer high school policy debate coach.
