Bio
Professor Wesley Cheng is currently a corporate counsel for a tech company in Silicon Valley, where he conducts internal investigations into leaks and theft of intellectual property, cyber intrusions, and insider threats. Prof. Cheng is also responsible for delivering investigative reports and recommendations to the executive staff to prevent recurrence.
Prior to this, Prof. Cheng also spent more than a decade as a prosecutor at both the local and state levels in New York. He started his career as an Assistant District Attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was the lead counsel in more than 20 trials and hearings in New York State Supreme and Criminal Court, handled more than 2,000 felonies and misdemeanors, and presented over 150 cases to the Grand Jury as a member of both the Trial Division and Investigations Division.
While in the Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau, Prof. Cheng’s cases involved data privacy litigation, cyber and white-collar fraud, including institutional and corporate cyber intrusions and theft, international money laundering schemes, business email compromise fraud, international identity theft rings, SIM swapping schemes, and complex cryptocurrency fraud. He also served in the Special Investigations Bureau in the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, with responsibilities including conducting long-term, complex investigations into narcotics trafficking organizations on the local, national and international levels with federal and state law enforcement. In this capacity, he utilized electronic surveillance techniques such as eavesdropping, pen registers, trap and traces, and GPS tracking warrants in his investigations.
Following his time at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Prof. Cheng worked as an Assistant Attorney General at the New York State Attorney General’s Office, assigned to the Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau in the Division of Criminal Justice. He was tasked with investigating and prosecuting securities fraud, tax fraud and money laundering.
Outside of his legal practice, Prof. Cheng was previously the Co-Director of the New York County Criminal Prosecution Clinic at New York Law School, and has taught trial advocacy at the college and law school levels at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the City University of New York, College of Technology.
Selected writings for Prof. Cheng include authoring a chapter entitled “A Practitioner’s Guide to Wiretaps in Public Corruption Investigations” for the National Association of Attorneys General Anticorruption Manual, a resource used for training 56 state and territory attorneys general and their staff. He has also had multiple publications on electronic surveillance at the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity of the Columbia University School of Law.
Prof. Cheng has been recognized by Cardozo Law School for his demonstrated commitment to public service with the Inspire! Award by the Center for Public Service Law and the Public Service Scholars.