Judge Deborah Batts, second from right, poses for a photo with her colleagues Professors Maria Marcus and Helen Bender and Dean Matthew Diller in a Fordham University handout photo dated 2015. Judge Deborah Batts, second from right, poses for a photo with her colleagues Professors Maria Marcus and Helen Bender and Dean Matthew Diller in a Fordham University handout photo dated 2015 – Fordham Library FLASH Archive
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The first openly gay judge appointed to a U.S. federal court died Sunday, according to court officials and colleagues.
Judge Deborah Batts, 72, presided over the bench at Southern District of New York since 1994 and oversaw major cases including the criminal trial against al-Qaida member Mamdouh Mahmud Salim and the defamation lawsuit filed against Bill O’Reilly. A spokeswoman for Fordham University School of Law, where Batts taught for over 30 years, said she died in her sleep.
Batts was slated to preside over the upcoming federal trial of Michael Avenatti over his alleged theft of Stormy Daniels’ book advance.
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