Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice brings experience, passion and dedication to the role of chief law enforcement official for one of the nation's largest and safest counties. Now in her second term in office, Rice has enacted numerous law enforcement initiatives and programs to serve Nassau County's diverse population of 1.3 million residents.
In keeping the central promise she made during her historic 2005 run for office, Rice wasted no time in tackling the epidemic of drunk-driving on Long Island. She aggressively pursued and obtained murder and manslaughter convictions for drunk drivers who caused deadly car crashes. She was instrumental in the passage of two new pieces of legislation, the creation of a new criminal statute that toughens penalties for drunk drivers who kill, and Leandra's Law which makes drunk driving with a child in the vehicle under the age of 16 a mandatory felony.
Months after taking office, Rice overhauled the office's DWI plea bargaining guidelines and created a comprehensive and unprecedented drunk-driving education program for Nassau's high schools. Later that year, Rice and the courts agreed to open a DWI court, allowing specially trained prosecutors and judges to efficiently manage thousands of drunk-driving cases on a case-by-case basis each year.
In addition to her nationally recognized fight against drunk driving, Rice has worked hard to modernize the office and to reallocate resources to fight modern crime in Nassau County.
Rice's innovative crime-fighting approach to the open-air drug market that dominated the Terrace-Bedell neighborhood of the Village of Hempstead has resulted in a dramatic reduction in crime and violence, and helped numerous men and women leave a life of crime behind.
Rice has also been at the forefront of the fight against the rising presence of heroin on Long Island. Her office has joined with police in aggressively pursuing those who supply the drug and the dealers who push the poison. Her heroin awareness program for parents, schoolchildren and teenagers, "Not My Child," has been presented in dozens of schools across the county and has received rave reviews from parents, school administrators, teens, and the former addicts who tell their cautionary tales.
Rice has also beefed up the resources used in the investigation of sexual predators preying on children using the Internet and boasts a 100% conviction rate for these predators. In addition to refusing to plea bargain on child sexual predator cases, Rice has vigorously lobbied the state legislature to close the loopholes in the law and to toughen the penalties for criminals who prey on our children.
During her first term in office, Rice reallocated a significant amount of resources to the investigation and prosecution of public corruption. Her administration has moved to aggressively root out corruption in our schools and local governments and continues to punish criminals who steal from Nassau County's honest taxpayers.
Rice has revamped bureaus dedicated to the protection of children and the elderly and to the prosecution of domestic violence. Rice has added specialized resources to the investigation of identity theft rings and consumer frauds and she has formed a specialized unit dedicated to the investigation of Medicaid fraud, the first of its kind in Nassau County.
Prior to becoming the first woman in Long Island's history to be elected district attorney, Rice served as an Assistant United States Attorney under Attorney General Janet Reno in the United States Department of Justice's Philadelphia office. During her more than five years as a federal prosecutor, Rice prosecuted cases of corporate fraud, deadbeat parents and public corruption, as well as federal drug and gun cases.
Rice began her career as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, where she prosecuted cases of domestic violence, sexual assault and armed robbery, before being promoted to the office's elite Homicide Bureau, where Rice successfully prosecuted dozens of murder cases.
Rice has received numerous awards and recognition for her service as a state and federal prosecutor. Rice has been the recipient of the United States Inspector General's Integrity Award and the United States Attorney General's Director's Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. As District Attorney, Rice has been honored by Touro University, the North Shore Animal League, the National Organization of Women, and 100 Black Men of Long Island, as well as many others.
Rice is the Third Vice President of the District Attorney Association of the State of New York, a member of the New York State and Nassau County Bar Associations, the National District Attorneys Association and the Board of Governors at Touro Law School, and a board member of New York Prosecutors Training Institute, Inc.
Kathleen Rice is a graduate of Garden City High School, Catholic University of America and Touro Law School. She is a resident of Locust Valley, New York.