Judge in 'Rockefeller' case was longtime prosecutor

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano, who sentenced the man known as Clark Rockefeller today to 4 to 5 years in prison, is a former prosecutor appointed to the court by former governor Mitt Romney in 2004.

Gaziano came to the court from the US attorney's office in Boston, where he was one of the lawyers who prosecuted drifter Gary Sampson for a series of murders in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Sampson was convicted and given the death sentence, which he is currently appealing.

Gaziano previously worked as a prosecutor in Plymouth County under the direction of Michael Sullivan, whom he followed to the US attorney's office in 2002. Gaziano joined the Plymouth County office in 1991 and spent a decade handling drug and murder cases. He is a graduate of Suffolk Law School and spent two years working as an associate with a Boston law firm, Foley Hoag.

Superior Court judges travel a circuit, and Gaziano has split his time on the bench between the downtown Boston courthouse for Suffolk County cases and Woburn, where Middlesex County trials are held.