Nicoletta Caferri

Nicoletta J. Caferri, a career prosecutor, was the inaugural Chief of the Queens County District Attorney’s Office Animal Cruelty Prosecutions Unit, which Ms. Caferri pioneered in 2016 and headed until her retirement in March 2023. The Unit was the first of its kind in New York City to be dedicated exclusively to the investigation and prosecution of crimes against animals, including the failure to provide adequate food, water, shelter, and veterinary care; the intentional abuse, injuring, torturing, poisoning, abandonment, and killing of wild and companion animals; sexual misconduct with animals; larceny of pets; and animal fighting. Ms. Caferri worked to develop alternative sentencing programs specially designed for animal abusers and contributed significantly to implement New York City’s Animal Abuse Registry. Ms. Caferri has lectured extensively in New York and throughout the United States about animal cruelty issues.

For her work in investigating and prosecuting animal cruelty cases, Ms. Caferri was honored with the New York City Bar Association Thomas E. Dewey Medal, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Award of Excellence, the State University of New York at Oneonta Alumni Of Distinction Honor, the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Vision Award, the Humane Society of the United States Humane Law Enforcement Award, and was twice named by the Animal Legal Defense Fund as one of America’s Top Ten Animal Defenders.

Prior to her appointment to Chief of the Animal Cruelty Prosecutions Unit, Ms. Caferri served as Deputy Bureau Chief of the Appeals Bureau in the Queens County District Attorney’s Office. In that capacity, she successfully represented the prosecution in the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Curtis Basile, in which the Court, for the first time, reviewed New York’s misdemeanor animal cruelty statute originally enacted in 1867. Ms. Caferri also served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in New York from 1987-1990. She is admitted to practice law in New York, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Ms. Caferri earned her B.A. from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 1978 and her J.D from Brooklyn Law School in 1985.