Kathleen M. Rice was elected in November, 2005 and sworn in on January 1, 2006 as the first woman District Attorney of Nassau County. As the chief law enforcement officer for Nassau County, she is responsible for the safety of 1.3 million county residents by carrying out the prosecution of those that have violated New York’s criminal law.  Ms. Rice previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Philadelphia office and as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn assigned to the elite Homicide Bureau.     

Since taking office, Ms. Rice has initiated a number of reforms. She has taken an aggressive stance against plea bargaining of DWI cases and worked with the court system to create a DWI court to efficiently manage thousands of drunk-driving cases on a case-by-case basis each year. She has taken a hard line against child predators and has cracked down on identity theft. Her priority is to ensure that Nassau remains one of the safest counties.