It is not surprising that Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice has decided to run for the seat that will be vacated by U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. After winning three elections for the district attorney’s office, Rice is well known and respected not only in Nassau County but nationally.
Last November she won re-election by 17 percentage points. Most county residents can probably not name the Republican candidate who ran against her. The same could very well be true in a Democrat primary, if there is one.
Rice has earned a reputation as a hard-nosed prosecutor. In 2011, her office arrested seven students involved in an SAT cheating scam at Great Neck North High School. The students had paid thousands of dollars to a Great Neck North graduate, Sam Eshaghoff, who, at the time, was attending Emory University, to take their SATs for them.
Although Eshagoff could have faced felony charges and possible incarceration, Rice let him go on the condition that he perform community service.
However, more important than punishing a handful of students, Rice helped introduce a new security initiative that requires students to submit a photograph when registering for the SAT that is entered into a database and checked when a student arrives at the testing site.
In addition to a high-profile crackdown on drunk driving, Rice showed she wasn’t afraid to step on privileged toes when she allowed her office to give the press pictures of the Johns arrested in prostitution stings, not just the pimps, madams and prostitutes.
But her recent handling of a political scandal that involved Republican Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and Police Chief Thomas Dale remains troubling.
Last October, on Dale’s orders, Nassau County police officers boarded a bus, handcuffed and removed Randy White who was delinquent on a $250 fine for selling counterfeit DVDs.
White said he was paid per signature to gather petitions for a straw candidate running on an independent line. Political insiders say that candidacy was part of a plan to siphon black votes from the Democratic Thomas Suozzi, who ran against Mangano.
After news of the arrest, Dale met directly with Mangano and immediately announced his resignation. Neither man offered an explanation of the incident or the resignation. Rice conducted an investigation but declined to bring charges in what had the smell of political corruption.
It was not her finest hour. Only five days earlier in an interview posted on the Internet, Rice said, she was “going after political corruption in a way no DA has ever done before.”
She added that there is a “level of apathy because [voters] feel that all of the public officials are corrupt and they feel that the system is weighted in favor of the connected and the elected.”
McCarthy, who is 70, is undergoing treatment for lung cancer. She has given Rice her strong endorsement. Both women will leave big shoes to fill.
Rice has earned a reputation as a fair and tough prosecutor. McCarthy has helped to keep the important issue of gun control in the national spotlight.
