Paul Batista

Batista's novel, The Warriors, appeared in December 2018. It deals with one of the nation's greatest criminal defense lawyers, Raquel Rematti, and her defense in a criminal trial of a United States Senator, who is also the widow of an assassinated President and who is herself planning a run for the presidency, on federal charges of fund-raising crimes. “The Warriors,” like all Batista’s novels, appears as an audiobook through Audible. His most recent novel, "Accusation," revolves around a world-famous actor accused of sexual harassment by aspiring actresses and the actor's intense resistance to those accusations. “Accusation” appeared in 2022. It, too, appears in audiobook format through Audible.

He serves as special counsel to The Aleph Institute, a charity that provides legal assistance to Israelis faced with criminal legal issues in the United States. Together with Alan Dershowitz and former United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey, he played a key role in President Donald J. Trump's commutation in December 2017 of the 27 year federal sentence imposed on Sholom Rubashkin, a prominent Jewish philanthropist. Batista is also General Counsel to The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a charity devoted to the eradication of deadly bacteria in nursing homes and other congregate living facilities.

His novel Manhattan Lockdown, a thriller about a sustained ISIS attack on Manhattan published by Oceanview, was released in June 2016. It, too, was a USA Today best-seller. It has been translated into Turkish and in 2018 was published by the major Turkish publishing house Agapi Yaymlaria. “Manhattan Lockdown” also appears in audiobook format distributed by Audible.

Batista's third novel, The Borzoi Killings, which involves the trial of a Mexican immigrant accused of the murder of an East Hampton hedge fund billionaire, was published in 2014, also by Astor + Blue Editions, and reissued in March 2016 by Oceanview. All three novels appear as audiobooks produced by Audible.com.

His second novel, Extraordinary Rendition, was released in May 2013 by Astor + Blue Editions and was reissued in April 2016 by Oceanview. Extraordinary Rendition, also an Amazon Best Seller, revolves around the trial of a suspected terrorist brought to the United States for trial.

Batista's first novel Death's Witness (Sourcebooks Landmark 2006) was awarded a silver medal by the Independent Book Publishers Association in 2007. Death's Witness was reissued in 2012 by Astor + Blue Editions and in 2016 by Oceanview Publishing. It also appeared in June 2016 on USA Today's Best Seller List for books in all formats. It is a legal thriller described by Publishers Weekly as "guilty of delivering not only sharp courtroom drama but steamy romantic escapism as well."

Since 1991, Batista has regularly appeared as a guest commentator on legal subjects on Court TV, CNN, HLN, CBS, ABC, and WNBC. He has written articles for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The National Law Journal. His poetry has been published in literary magazines such as the Atlanta Review, Poetry International, and Parnassus.

He is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a 1974 graduate of Cornell Law School. He served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War.

Paul Batista (born December 9, 1948, in Milford, Massachusetts) is a television personality, American novelist and trial lawyer. He is the author of the leading treatise on the federal racketeering statute, Civil RICO Practice Manual published by the international publishing firm Wolters-Kluwer.