Maryanne Trump Barry

Maryanne Trump Barry (April 5, 1937 – November 13, 2023) was an American attorney and a United States federal judge.

She became an assistant United States attorney in 1974 and was first appointed to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. In 1999, she was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Bill Clinton.

In January 2006, she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the nomination of her colleague Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court. She took senior status in June 2011, and in February 2019, she announced her retirement from the bench after an investigation was launched into allegations that she had committed judicial misconduct by participating in fraudulent tax and financial transactions.

Barry was the older sister of former president Donald Trump.

Early life and education

Maryanne Trump was born in Queens, New York City on April 5, 1937, the eldest child of real-estate developer Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. She was the eldest sister of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States. She attended Kew-Forest School.  She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1958,  and a Master of Arts in public law and government from Columbia University in 1962. She later attended law school, earning her Juris Doctor from Hofstra University School of Law in 1974.

Personal life and death

Barry's first husband was David Desmond; the couple divorced in 1980.

 In 1982, she married John Joseph Barry, a New Jersey lawyer. They were married 18 years before he died on April 9, 2000. She had one son from her first marriage, David William Desmond, who is a New York psychologist.

In 2016, Barry gave $4 million to Fairfield University, a Catholic institution, to fund scholarships and endow the university's Center for Ignatian Spirituality.

On November 13, 2023, Barry was found dead at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where she had been under hospice care for cancer. She was aged 86.

Career

U.S. attorney's office

After being a homemaker for thirteen years, in 1974, Barry became an assistant United States attorney, one of only two women out of sixty-two lawyers in the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. She was in the civil division from 1974 to 1975 and in the appeals division from 1976 to 1982, serving as deputy chief of that division from 1976 to 1977 and chief of the division from 1977 to 1982. She served as Executive Assistant United States Attorney from 1981 to 1982. She was First Assistant United States Attorney from 1981 to 1983.