WhatChaMaBlogIt!

As a young Assistant District Attorney in New York City, Lou O’Neill took on involved financial-crimes cases for Mr. Morgenthau.  He was able to pursue cases with an international aspect, including some that involved tracking down criminals overseas (often with almost no information as to their whereabouts), moving to extradite them, and ensuring their rendition.  Other cases that Louis O’Neill investigated, prosecuted and won involved major frauds, smuggling, arson and organized crime.  O’Neill and the entire Special Prosecutions Team devoted significant time in bringing to justice fraudsters who took advantage of charties, such as the Red Cross and banks, such as the Municipal Credit Union, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Fresh out of Harvard Law School, Louis O’Neill was recruited by the Harvard Legal Reform Program to help the Russian government draft good, rational, market-based laws to govern the Russian economy, which has deteriorated terribly under 75 years of central planning and Communists rule, where prices and costs had absolutely no relationship and shortages, long-lines and inefficiency were the norm.  Lou O’Neill put his legal expertise to work with a team of young Russian lawyers to draft laws, bills and regulations on the securities markets, real estate transactions, the civil code, land-use planning and zoning, civil procedure and other areas.  He also acted as the main liaison for visiting scholar-experts in these areas, including a team from Yale University and another from various universities and courts in The Netherlands.

In October 2007 Ambassador Louis O’Neill delivered a closing speech to a seminar on Confidence and Security-Building Measures that the OSCE Mission to Moldova had organized to bring high-level representatives from the Moldovan government and Transnistrian leadership together.  The seminar took place in Odessa, Ukraine and  featured speakers with familiarity with other conflict situations, such as Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, Aceh and Georgia.  Ambassador O’Neill final remarks – which made the case for why CSBMs are vital even when progress is slow and uneven – was attended by all seminar participants, as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Moldova, Michael Kirby, the British Ambassador to Moldova, John Beyer, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Moldova, Sergei Pirozhkov, the EU Special Representative to Moldova, Kalman Miszei and the Chief Russian Negotiator on the Transnistrian question, Valeriy Nesterushkin.