Hon. Frank P. Geraci, Jr. is chief district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York. He was nominated to the U.S. District Court by former President Barack Obama in May 2012. Geraci was confirmed to the position by the U.S. Senate and received his commission on January 2, 2013. He filled the vacancy created by the Hon. David G. Larimer, who took senior status in 2009.
Geraci was appointed chief judge in March 2015.
Prior to his appointment to the U.S. District Court, he was serving as a judge for the Monroe County Court in the Seventh Judicial District of New York. Geraci was elected to its bench in 1999 and was retained in subsequent elections. During his tenure on the County Court, he was appointed acting justice of the Monroe County Supreme Court by former Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman in 2000. Geraci held both of these positions until his elevation to the U.S. District Court bench.
His judicial career began in 1992 when he was first elected to the Rochester City Court.
He attended the University of Dayton, where he received a B.A. in 1973. Geraci continued his studies there, completing a J.D. at the University of Dayton Law School in 1977.
After law school, he joined the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, where he worked as a special assistant district attorney for five years. In 1983, after his departure from the District Attorney’s Office, Geraci became an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York, a position he maintained until 1987.
It was at that time, Geraci entered the private sector, as a partner at Geraci & Feldman. He would remain in private practice until assuming the City Court bench.
His professional memberships have included the Russian-American Rule of Law Consortium, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (Board Member of the New York Branch), and the Monroe County Bar Association.
Geraci served on the Monroe County Bar Association’s Law Day Committee and its Memorial Committee.
He was founder and president of the Rochester Teen Court and also served as president of the University of Dayton National Alumni Association, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Senior Citizens’ Academy, and the Student Mock Trials (for Monroe County schools).
Geraci served as a speaker to Japanese Police in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan on the topics of “A Review of Delinquent and Violent Behaviors by American Youth” and “Community Policing.”
He was born in Rochester, New York.