Kathleen Rice

Since 2006, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice has managed one of the nation's largest prosecutors' offices, providing innovative, ground-breaking leadership that has received national acclaim.

Kathleen shocked the political establishment in 2005 with her upset defeat of a 31-year incumbent. Immediately after being sworn-in as the first woman DA in Long Island's history, Kathleen wasted no time in tackling entrenched crime and launching bold initiatives.

Making good on a central promise of her 2005 campaign, Kathleen has proposed sweeping changes to state laws that curb government waste and target those who rip-off and exploit taxpayer-financed programs. Her public corruption investigations have led to government reform and landed numerous local officials behind bars. These efforts led one Long Island newspaper to dub Kathleen, New York's "Eliot Ness."

In 2007, Kathleen launched an innovative and ambitious strategy to eliminate one of Long Island's most prolific drug markets. The strategy resulted in an 80% reduction in drug crime and a dramatic drop in neighborhood violence. The strategy, profiled nationally on ABC's PrimeTime, has since been adopted by the United State's Department of Justice, where it has been utilized by communities throughout the country.

Kathleen's nationally-recognized effort to combat drunk driving has led to statewide changes in DWI law and Long Island’s first two DWI-related murder convictions. In 2008, CBS's 60 Minutes profiled Kathleen's work to reduce drunk driving, sparking a renewed national debate on local law enforcement's role in DWI prevention, prosecution and education.

In addition to offering bold crime-fighting solutions, Kathleen has changed the ethos of an office that serves a diverse body of more than 1.3 million residents. Kathleen’s improved the training program for young prosecutors, she’s developed flex and part-time positions for employees caring for a young child or aging parent, and, in four short years, Kathleen’s eliminated the decades-old 30% pay-gap between men and women prosecutors in the office. Under her leadership, half the office’s bureaus are managed by women prosecutors and, in 2006, Kathleen appointed the first two women to executive assistant district attorney posts in the office’s 110 year history.

Kathleen began her career as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn DA's office, where she quickly rose through the ranks and eventually served in the office's elite homicide bureau, prosecuting and convicting some of New York City's most violent killers. In 1999, Kathleen was tapped by the United States Attorney General to serve as a federal prosecutor, where she went on to an award-winning tenure prosecuting complex financial crime, public corruption and national drug trafficking rings.

Whether it’s revolutionary change to how prosecutors combat DWI, public corruption, or drug and violent crime, or her progressive modernization of the office, Kathleen’s strategies are making communities safer and providing successful models for similar offices across the state.