District Attorney Greg Newman appears in court during a hearing on his removal in April 2020. Photo courtesy of WLOS.

RALEIGH — Gov. Roy Cooper has appointed R. Andrew Murray, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, as the acting district attorney for Prosecutorial District 42, serving Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties.

Murray replaces Gregory A. Newman, who was removed from office by Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin last week.

Appointed in November 2017, Murray oversaw prosecution of violent crimes and other complex corporate and political litigation for the Western District of North Carolina until February 2021.

Prior to his tenure in the Western District, he served as the district attorney of Mecklenburg County from 2011 until 2017. Murray also served as an Assistant District Attorney in Mecklenburg County after working as a Managing Partner at Goodman, Carr, Laughrun, Levine, Murray & Greene with a focus on criminal defense.

He earned his B.A. in Political Science and Government from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a J.D from the University of North Carolina School of Law. Murray enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1980 and resigned as a U.S. Coast Guard reservist after 35 years of service in 2016.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may republish our stories for free, online or in print. Simply copy and paste the article contents from the box below. Note, some images and interactive features may not be included here.

This release, story or event was developed through multiple sources and/or is from the staff of Carolina Public Press.