Bettering the Community, One Case at a Time
One could argue convincingly that Brian Gallagher’s legal career was predestined.
Simply take a trip back to the early 1990s, when a 6-year-old Brian could often be found hanging out in father Terry’s magistrate’s office in Scranton’s Tripp Park section.
“When he arraigned people I would go,” Brian recalled. “I would sit in the back of his office and just listen. People thought of my father as a pretty stern guy, and he is, but what I always noticed was that he treated everyone fairly and with dignity. That left an impression on me.”
A few decades later, Brian is still applying those lessons each and every day as one of the foremost prosecutors in Northeast Pennsylvania, one who has served in a number of roles in both the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Recently, Brian’s expertise and commitment to his work resulted in his appointment from First Assistant to District Attorney. He replaced two-term DA Mark Powell, who filled a vacancy on the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas.
Now, Brian is running for a full term as DA, hoping residents recognize the vast and multifaceted experience he would bring to the role of the county’s top law enforcement official.
The way he sees it, his job isn’t merely to prosecute, but to seek justice and ensure people’s civil liberties are protected – and in the process improve the quality of life for the community.
“My strength is my experience,” Brian said. “There’s not one position in the DA’s Office that I’m not familiar with – experience is critical. Our citizens deserve a DA who has experience on the local, state, and federal level, someone who has dealt with every single type of crime, encountered every scenario that arises during a criminal investigation, and tried every single type of case. As a citizen, if a loved one were a victim of a crime, I would want the most experienced, hardest working prosecutor handling the case. That’s what I bring.
“What I also offer is the philosophy that if we’re taking away someone’s freedom, we need to make sure that everything is above board and rock solid,” he continued. “Justice looks different depending on the facts and circumstances of every case. It’s not ‘get conviction and lock people up.’ It’s ‘evaluate everything.’ Find the truth and ensure everything is ethically and legally sound. I hold that responsibility sacred.”
West Side Pride
When Brian talks about commitment to community, it rings true because of his deep local roots.
He grew up on Oram Street in Scranton’s legendarily tight-knit West Side, one of Terry and Cathy Gallagher’s four children. In the summer and fall, he played baseball and football morning, noon and night at Lackawanna Little League, while winters were largely spent on the basketball court of the former Holy Cross Church in the Bellevue section.
He still lives there today, in the West Mountain section, with his wife, the former Kathleen Knabel, a native Dunmorean and one of nine siblings. Together, Brian and Kathleen are the proud parents of four children – Thomas, 8, Nora, 6, and twin boys Jack and William, 3.
“West Side represents who I am,” Brian said. “It’s all about family and community, taking care of each other and fighting for each other. I had such a great childhood in West Scranton and was so fortunate to grow up in that neighborhood. Its community pride is a microcosm for the many proud neighborhoods in our county. One of the primary reasons I’m running for DA is because I want my kids and all the kids of Lackawanna County to grow up and enjoy a safe, fun, and loving neighborhood.”
Of course, plenty of great values were instilled in him by his parents. His father had a general law practice before being elected to serve as the magisterial district judge for West and North Scranton in the early 1990s.
Watching his father work up-close provided Brian with a rock-solid foundation for his future career. While the elder Gallagher never pressured his son to become a lawyer, his actions proved a subtle influence.
“What I learned from him is to treat everyone with dignity. He really had a soft spot for people who had nothing – because that’s how he grew up,” Brian said. “Also, accountability and responsibility are bedrock principles. Seeking the truth is everything. Is this person suffering from addiction, are they a victim of circumstance, do they need help, or are they inherently bad and need to be removed from our community? That’s the evaluation. All of that made a real impression on me.”
After graduating from Scranton Preparatory School, Brian pursued his bachelor’s degree at the University of Scranton. During that time, he started to think about becoming a police officer, having also been influenced by the many good cops he met in his father’s office.
Given the potential dangers of the job, his parents gently suggested another path that might fit his interests.
“They said, ‘Why don’t you think about law school?’” Brian said with a hearty laugh.
He agreed, enrolling at Western Michigan University’s Cooley School of Law. Early on, he discovered he especially enjoyed criminal law, particularly the prosecutorial side.
During his last semester, he did an externship for the Pennsylvania State Attorney General’s Scranton office, working in the litigation and consumer protection units. He particularly enjoyed the latter.
“Consumer protection was gratifying because you were helping people being ripped off by scam artists, etc.,” he said. Unfortunately, that is so prevalent in our society. I had to learn how to talk to victims and how to deal with them with patience and empathy. They want to be heard, and you just have to sit there and hear them out – really listen to them.”
A Well-Rounded Prosecutor
After passing the bar exam in 2012, Brian was hired by the Lackawanna DA’s Office as an Assistant District Attorney. Early on, he was assigned to its Juvenile Unit, prosecuting young offenders for a litany of crimes including manslaughter, sexual assault and robbery.
Very quickly, he was “bit by the German shepherd.”
“That’s what they call finding your niche in prosecution,” he said. “I fell in love with it immediately. And the people are great. Working with law enforcement and observing how hard they work and how much they give of themselves to the community is inspiring. It’s how I met some of my best friends and people I now consider family.”
In 2015, he was promoted to Deputy District Attorney and assigned to the DUI/Homicide by Vehicle Unit. There, he oversaw two Assistant District Attorneys and prosecuted more than 20 vehicular homicides.
“That taught me a lot. They’re horrible situations – you can convict the person of every charge, but you can never make the victims’ families whole, you can never bring that loved one back,” he said. “You’re also going out in the middle of the night to crash scenes working hand in hand with investigators. I really benefited from it, because it allowed me to work on crash reconstruction and collaborate closely with the Pennsylvania State Police. Those long nights allowed me to develop my skills as an investigator and prosecutor.”
During this period, Brian also worked on several high-profile murder trials, including the successful prosecutions of Neil Pal and Jason Dominick for the 2013 shooting death of 24-year-old Dunmore resident Frankie Bonacci.
The longer Brian worked in the office, the more expertise he gained in other areas. From 2015-2022, he served in the Arson Unit, prosecuting cases involving arson for hire, arson-related insurance fraud, and arson fatalities. (Today, he serves as an instructor for FEMA’s National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.)
From 2018-2021, he served in the Gun, Gang & Drug Unit, where in addition to prosecuting hundreds of felony drug and gang-related cases he supervised the Lackawanna County Drug Task Force and two Assistant District Attorneys. Among other wins, he secured guilty verdicts in multiple felony drug trials and the forfeiture of more than $300,000 in assets from illegal drug sales. He also served as the chief prosecutor and lead investigator of “Operation Grabbing Straws,” which resulted in charges against 26 defendants and the seizure of 22 illegal firearms.
“What’s extremely difficult about prosecution is sitting down months before trial to prepare for it,” he said. “It’s a challenge, it’s redundant. You’re going through 5,000 pages of discovery, page after page of witness statements, figuring out a theme and preparing an opening and closing statement. It’s where the sausage is made, so to speak – no one ever sees that work. But if you’re disciplined and do it right, the trial part is easy and really fun.”
A Commitment to Collaboration
While conducting these investigations, Brian had embarked on another formative chapter of his career, serving as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In the role from 2018-2022, he acted as a liaison between the DA’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Scranton offices of the FBI and several other federal law enforcement agencies.
The partnership allowed the DA’s Office to better determine what cases were appropriate for federal adoption and led to more than 25 successful federal prosecutions.
In September 2022, Brian was put in charge of the DA’s Office’s Major Crimes Unit, where he oversaw the prosecution of all major crimes, including homicide, manslaughter, aggravated assault and gun violence. However, not long after the promotion he left the office to become a full-time Assistant U.S. Attorney. In a short period of time, he tried numerous cases throughout the entire Middle District, from gun trafficking and illegal immigration to child pornography and drug-related homicides.
The opportunity to serve as First Assistant District Attorney brought Brian back to the DA’s Office in November 2023. Still, his relatively brief time in the federal system was highly influential.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pa is a tremendous office with the best prosecutors in the country – it’s a fine-tuned machine,” he said. “I know firsthand the structure of the U.S. Attorney’s Office could apply to the DA’s Office. I learned so much from my federal colleagues and my skills as a prosecutor on high-level cases grew exponentially.
“I also know that the DA’s Office should be collaborating more with federal law enforcement. They have such great resources – and they want to help us,” he added. “Collaboration with our state and federal partners has to become second nature, a real cultural shift in local law enforcement. I think that will detract criminals from coming into Lackawanna County.”
Brian will also oversee the re-establishment of the DA’s Office’s Community Service Program, which provides minor offenders with the opportunity to work on service projects to reduce their sentences. On top of that, he’ll be introducing some new initiatives, including a state-funded program that will allow at-risk middle school students to take two-times-a-week jiu-jitsu classes with state police officers and instructor Jim Simrell. Those who complete the program will have their suspensions eliminated.
“So, in that sense, what we’re doing is more restorative,” Brian said. “It’s something that’s healthy, the kids put the work in, they develop a good relationship with law enforcement, and they get exposure to good role models. We need to keep getting resources to our schools and students because they are our future.”
Brian’s community involvement extends beyond the DA’s Office. He currently serves as an adjunct professor in Marywood University’s Social Sciences Department and sits on the boards of the Scranton Jewish Community Center and West Scranton Little League. He’s also an active member of the Black Sheep of West Scranton, American Ukrainian Veterans Association, Victor Alfieri Society and Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Along the way, he’s received a number of awards, among them the Lackawanna Drug Task Force Prosecutor of the Year, the Scranton Police Detective Division Award for the Bonacci murder trials, and Children’s Advocacy Center Child Advocate of the Year.
That commitment to the community is integral to Brian’s “common sense, balanced approach” to law and order, which he believes will reduce crime and make the county an overall better place to live and raise a family.
“Make no mistake, we will hammer the people who are hurting our community,” he said. “Community safety is my top priority, and we have work to do. Under my leadership, law enforcement will devote significant resources to being substantially more aggressive in combating the recent increase in violent crime, gang activity and illegal possession of firearms. But we also must be a force in community outreach by providing resources and engaging our school districts, which directly correlates to crime reduction and prevention. We will create a culture of collaboration with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to put criminals behind bars and ensure that Lackawanna County remains a safe place to live, work and raise our families.”