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What's New? | Faculty in the News |  News Archive | News Home
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Jodi Levine Avergun ’87 and Irwin B. Cohen ’58 Honored at Annual Alumni Cocktail Reception
See photos from the event.
Jodi Levine Avergun, a member of the Brooklyn Law School Class of 1987, is Special Counsel in the litigation department at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, resident in Washington, D.C. During her 17 years of service in the federal government, she held two of the highest career positions in the Department of Justice in the drug enforcement area. As Chief of Staff of the Drug Enforcement Administration from February 2005 to November 2006, and as Chief of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section between 2002 and 2005, Ms. Avergun served as a leading voice in the federal government on matters concerning drug enforcement, counter-drug policy, regulation of controlled substances and demand reduction. At DEA, she advised and counseled the DEA Administrator, and oversaw all aspects of the domestic and international operations of this 11,000-member agency with a $2.1 billion budget. Prior to joining the DEA, she served as the Chief of the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. In this capacity, she managed a staff of 47 attorneys in Washington, Virginia, and Bogotá, Colombia, and oversaw all federal narcotics prosecutions as well as national drug policy decisions. Ms. Avergun’s team also worked with U.S. overseas agents and their foreign law enforcement counterparts to extradite major international drug traffickers to the United States to be brought to trial in American courts. Additionally, she supervised the Special Operations Division, a team of attorneys responsible for prosecuting complex drug conspiracy cases involving multiple jurisdictions throughout the country. Before her work in Washington, D.C., Ms. Avergun served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1990 to 2002. During that time, she was a Deputy Chief and then Chief of the Narcotics and Money Laundering Section, the Chief of the Long Island Branch Office, and Senior Litigation Counsel. Among the many successful complex prosecutions she led was the Golden Venture alien-smuggling case, in which a freighter carrying illegal Chinese immigrants ran aground off Rockaway Beach, resulting in the drowning death of ten people who tried to swim to shore. The convictions in the case, upheld on appeal, ultimately led to changes in the laws governing alien smuggling cases. Among her awards and commendations, Ms. Avergun has received the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as Assistant United States Attorney and she has been the recipient of dozens of awards and citations for excellence in law enforcement from various federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, (former) U.S. Customs Service, (former) Immigration and Naturalization Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Upon graduating magna cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, Ms. Avergun was an associate at Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where she specialized in merger and acquisition litigation. In law school, she was articles editor of the Brooklyn Law Review. She received her B.A. from Brown University. She lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband, David, daughter Ilana, and son Michael. Irwin B. Cohen, a member of the Class of 1958, is an independent real estate developer who has dedicated his career to creating practical, symbiotic environments of public and private utility. His visionary projects have been credited with the revitalization of several urban areas, most notably in New York City and Philadelphia. They often involve the redevelopment of historically significant buildings, primarily warehouses and old manufacturing facilities, into non-residential uses. Mr. Cohen’s projects in the Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood have helped to revive a long-declining area of several city blocks from Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River. In 1996, he converted the run-down former Nabisco factory complex between 15th and 16th Streets into the Chelsea Market, now a popular destination for shoppers from across the metropolitan area. Described as a “post-industrial theme park,” the large indoor market houses dozens of fresh food shops owned by small producer-retailers, including Amy’s Breads, Manhattan Fruit Exchange, The Lobster Place and Mimo’s Italian Foods. Upper floor tenants include NY 1 News, Food Network, Oxygen Media and Major League Baseball Productions and Media. Today the area flourishes as a direct result of the public’s embracement of the Market. A hands-on manager who oversees all aspects of his projects, Mr. Cohen recently converted another former Nabisco building in the area into a state-of-the-art office facility and restaurants. In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Cohen helped jumpstart the revitalization of the area north of Philadelphia’s City Hall by converting a former railroad terminal and warehouse into a mixed-use facility. In the 1960s, he developed manufacturing and retail centers in Long Island City from large underutilized warehouses, including The Factory, which was the original Macy’s Warehouse; the Center Building, formerly a Ford Motor Company plant; and the Falchi Building, the old Gimbel’s warehouse. He began his career as house counsel to a New York commercial real estate firm, negotiating for his clients across the country, and soon went out on his own. In 1957, while still in law school, he competed for the school in the Eastern Intercollegiate Weight Lifting Championships, winning the middle heavyweight division. A strong believer in the power of the City’s diversity and its small and family-owned businesses, Mr. Cohen has continued to pursue projects that reflect these interests. His next project, planned for a location in the South Bronx, will be the largest ethnic food market in United States. In addition to the many accolades and recognition for his real estate projects, Mr. Cohen has also been honored by the United States Marshal’s Service. He was deemed an Honorary Deputy United States Marshal for his work after 9/11 in helping to build facilities in New York City for the Service. The father of three daughters, he has three sons-in-law and 11 grandchildren. He lives with his wife Jill in Manhattan.
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