Assistant Attorneys General Meaghan Hassel-Shearer and Benjamin Petersberg are also resigning from the AGO’s civil and criminal divisions.
Gallagher said he will be staying on island “for a couple of weeks.”
“I would love to stay in the CNMI,” said Gallagher, who declined to elaborate.
“I had a wonderful experience working with wonderful attorneys and staff in the Attorney General’s Office,” Gallagher said.
A source who requested not to be named said Gallagher “was the one that raised the stink about the Joe Camacho party at the governor’s mansion.”
Variety was told Gallagher did not attend the “meet and greet” gathering, but other lawyers, both from criminal and civil divisions as well as some AGO staffers, showed up at the event.
“He was the assistant attorney general that initially started crying foul about it,” the source added.
Attorney General Edward Buckingham had yet to respond to the inquiries of this reporter.
Chief Prosecutor Michael Ernest declined to comment on personnel matters, but said: “I wish him with every future success,” referring to Gallagher.
Gallagher served as chief of the AGO civil division from Februaty to May this year.
Gallagher also became chief prosecutor in an acting capacity when the AGO criminal division experienced a fast personnel turnover in recent years.
Gallagher started working as a CNMI prosecutor in April 2009.
Among the high profiles cases he handled were the murder of a Marianas High School security guard and a store owner in Tanapag; the sexual assault case against Patrick Calvo; a guest worker who victimized two young boys; and the firefighter who was convicted of stealing a boat engine from the Northern Islands Mayor’s Office.
Prior to working in the CNMI, Gallagher was the attorney for the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Rutgers University School of Law in New Jersey. He was an assistant prosecutor and cross-sworn as a special assistant U.S. attorney in Camden County, New Jersey. He also served as legal counsel to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and was in private law practice early in his legal career.
