Press Release
D.A. KATZ ANNOUNCES DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CHIEF KELLY SESSOMS-NEWTON AWARDED PRESTIGIOUS THOMAS E. DEWEY MEDAL FOR OUTSTANDING WORK
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Kelly E. Sessoms-Newton, Bureau Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau is the Queens County recipient of the sixteenth annual Thomas E. Dewey Medal.
The Thomas E. Dewey Medal is awarded each year by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York to an outstanding assistant district attorney in each of the City’s five District Attorney’s offices and in the Office of the City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor. Chief Sessoms-Newton accepted the award during a virtual ceremony on Tuesday evening, December 1, 2020, which was attended by many of her colleagues.
District Attorney Katz said, “Assistant District Attorney Kelly Sessoms-Newton’s contributions to this office are immeasurable. She is a consummate professional who is relentless in Court and provides compassionate support and advocacy to victims of domestic violence.”
Chief Sessoms-Newton joined the Queens District Attorney’s Office as an intern working in the Intake Bureau in 1992. She was hired the following year and became an assistant district attorney. She has worked in several bureaus within the DA’s Office – family court, appeals, narcotics trials and the career criminal major crimes bureau. After working as a supervisor in the intake and criminal court bureaus, she was appointed deputy bureau chief and ultimately bureau chief of the domestic violence bureau in December of 2018.
Among prosecutors in New York County, Thomas E. Dewey is remembered as having ushered in the era in which the District Attorney’s office has been staffed by professional prosecutors chosen on merit rather than through political patronage. Dewey first came to the public’s attention as a prosecutor in the 1930s, instituting successful criminal proceedings against gangsters, bootleggers and organized crime figures of the day. By 1937, Dewey was elected District Attorney of New York County, where he served one term before resigning to run for governor.
The Thomas E. Dewey Medal was first awarded on November 29, 2005.