| Kathleen Maura Rice | |
|---|---|
| District Attorney of Nassau County | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 2005 |
|
| Preceded by | Denis Dillon |
| Constituency | Nassau County, New York |
| Personal details | |
| Born | New York, New York |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Alma mater | Touro Law School |
Kathleen Maura Rice (born February 15, 1965 in New York City) is the current Nassau County District Attorney. In November 2005, Rice defeated 31-year-incumbent Denis E. Dillon to become the first female district attorney of Nassau.[1]
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Rice grew up in Garden City, and was one of 10 siblings in an Irish Catholic family. She graduated from The Catholic University of America in 1987 with a B.A. in English and graduated from Touro Law School in June 1991.[2]
She began her career as an assistant district attorney the Brooklyn DA's Office, where she was eventually appointed to serve in the office's Homicide Bureau. Rice served as a federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice.
Despite Democratic losses throughout Nassau County in 2009, Rice defeated her Republican opponent by more than eight percentage points.[3]
Rice has received national attention for her prosecution of drunk-drivers who kill or seriously injure their victims.[4] She has also received attention for her efforts combat drugs using a combination of traditional law enforcement methods and community-based social service opportunities for non-violent offenders.[5] In 2007, Rice became the first local district attorney in New York history to form a Medicaid Fraud Unit.[6]
Rice has been criticized for failing to prosecute a Hofstra University freshman in the fall of 2009 who lied about a gang rape. The freshman reported that she was raped by 5 men, resulting in their arrest and imprisonment for several days. When a cell phone video surfaced showing that the girl was a willing, consensual, and active participant in the orgy, Rice freed the 5 men, but declined to prosecute the girl for filing a false report. Joy Watson, a prosecutor looking to run against Rice for District Attorney, said that she would have prosecuted the case.[7]
In 2009, the Long Island Press newspaper ranked Rice the #3 most powerful person on Long Island.[8]
In February 2010 Rice announced she intended to run for Attorney General of New York should the incumbent, Andrew Cuomo, formally announce his campaign for Governor.[9] According to campaign finance filings filed in January, Rice had $2.4 million in the bank, nearly a million dollars more than any of her possible opponents.[10] In October 2009, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo headlined a fundraising event for Rice on Long Island.[11] On September 14, 2010 she lost the attorney general race for the Democratic nomination to Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman was elected to the office.
Rice was criticised by the Albany Times Union for running a TV ad asserting that New York State did not have a law making it a felony to lure a minor over the Internet. The editorial said such a law had been passed prior to the ad being aired.[12] In fact, the law exists, titled "Disseminating Indecent Material to a Minor." The "luring" portion of the crime is in effect, but the crime prohibiting use of the internet to engage in communication with a minor was declared unconstitutional in American Libraries Ass'n v. Pataki, 1997, 969 F.Supp. 160.
As of 2010, she is single and has no children.[13]