A Wenatchee lawyer was nominated Thursday to become Eastern Washington’s newest federal judge, the White House announced Thursday.

Stanley A. Bastian, managing partner of Jeffers, Danielson, Sonn & Aylward law firm, will replace U.S. District Judge Edward Shea, who has been placed into the federal judiciary’s senior status. He's been a finalist for two previous positions on the federal bench.

Bastian was among eight judical nominations President Barack Obama made Thursday. All are subject to Senate confirmation.

A 1983 graduate of the University of Washington School of Law, Bastian has served as an assistant city attorney in Seattle and as a law clerk in the state Appeals Court. He joined the Wenatchee law firm in 1988 and specializes in civil employment cases.

Among his most notable cases was the civil litigation surrounding the widely discredited Wenatchee sex ring investgations of the mid 1990s. Bastian was hired to defend prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators who had been sued for their roles in the controversial investigations.

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