Eric Tamashasky is a former magistrate judge and has expertise in the areas of criminal law, particularly computer crimes, homicides, and serious/fatal crash investigations involving operating while intoxicated.  He served as a magistrate judge with the St. Joseph County (Indiana) Superior Court for more than four years, where he presided over both a criminal and civil docket in the Traffic and Misdemeanor division and the Small Claims Division of the Superior Court.  Prior to serving as a magistrate, Eric spent over seventeen years in various law enforcement capacities.  Over that time, he served as a prosecutor (both a deputy and a chief deputy), adjunct professor, and sworn cybercrimes investigator.  For eight years, Eric served as the Police Legal Advisor for the St. Joseph County Sheriff/Police Department.  While working with the St. Joseph County Sheriff, he was deputized as a law enforcement officer and shared responsibility for the St. Joseph County Cybercrimes Unit. Eric served as an investigator for the unit, was part of the team that served search warrants, and filled the role of deputy prosecutor responsible for charging and prosecuting computer crime-related cases.  His background in cybercrimes and computer-facilitated criminal investigations includes training by the United States Secret Service’s National Computer Forensics Institute in Hoover, Alabama, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria, Virginia, the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce.  Eric was also a prosecutor with the St. Joseph County Fatal Crash Team (FACT); he started in that role when FACT began in our community in 2006 and was the lead prosecutor for several years on FACT cases.  Eric has experience working with local law enforcement agencies in drafting search warrants; many of the templates still used today were created by him.

Eric has degrees from Hillsdale College (B.A. in Economics), Ohio State (M.A. in Economics), and Notre Dame Law School (J.D.).  Eric has presented on cyber safety to over 30,000 people and consults with Safer Schools Together where he has experience presenting on digital threat assessment around the country.  Eric served as Faculty at the National Advocacy Center (NAC) in Columbia, South Carolina and taught Courtroom Technology to prosecutors from around the country at the NAC. Eric published an article in the Journal of Legislation entitled “The Lewis Carroll Offense: The Ever-Changing Meaning of ‘Corruptly’ within the Federal Criminal Law.” He currently teaches a course entitled “Cybercrime and the Law” at the University of Notre Dame each fall for undergraduate students; the course explores Fourth Amendment issues related to technology, emerging trends in computer-crimes and constitutional law.