Headshot of Wesley Cheng

Wesley Cheng

Adjunct Professor

Bio

Professor Wesley Cheng is currently a corporate counsel for a tech company in Silicon Valley, where he focuses his practice on issues related to IP and cyber security. 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 an adjunct professor and 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. Other recognition includes being named a Rising Star by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), Best Under 40 by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), and a Fellows Atlas Award winner by the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD).

Education

  • Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
    J.D., Law     2008

  • Syracuse University
    B.S., Journalism     2005

Accomplishments

  • Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) Fellows Atlas Award
    The LCLD Fellows Program is an intensive, yearlong professional development program that mentors the legal industry’s leaders of tomorrow. The LCLD Atlas Award recognizes fellows who showed the highest levels of engagement throughout the program.     2024

  • Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) Rising Star
    MCCA’s Rising Stars is an annual list featuring stellar attorneys whose accomplishments and dedication to the legal profession and to their community place them among those “attorneys to watch.”     2024

  • National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) Best Under 40
    The Best Under 40 award recipients are talented individuals within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) legal community under the age of 40 who have achieved prominence and distinction in their fields of endeavor and who have demonstrated a strong commitment to AANHPI civic or community affairs.     2023

  • Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Inspire! Award
    Recognizing alumni who have shown dedication and commitment to public service.     2009

Selected Scholarship

Courses