Cyrus Vance Jr.
Cyrus Roberts Vance Jr. is an American attorney and retired politician who served as the District Attorney of New York County, New York. He was previously a principal partner at the law firm of Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello, & Bohrer, P.C. He is the son of Cyrus Vance, former Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter. Vance did not seek reelection as District Attorney in the 2021 election, and was succeeded by Alvin Bragg. He is currently a partner at Baker McKenzie.
Early life and education
Vance was born and raised in New York City. He is the son of Grace Elsie and Cyrus R. Vance, who served as Secretary of the Army under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Johnson, and Secretary of State to President Jimmy Carter.Vance attended the Buckley and Groton Schools, and then went on to graduate from Yale University. He then earned a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 1982. While in law school, he planned campaign trips for Colorado Senator Gary Hart.
Career
Legal work
Upon graduating from Georgetown, Vance joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as an Assistant District Attorney, where he supervised grand jury investigations and prosecuted cases involving murder, organized crime, career criminals, political corruption, international art fraud, and white-collar crime.In 1988, Vance moved to Seattle because, according to Vance, he wanted to build a name for himself independent of his father's influence. In 1995, Vance co-founded McNaul Ebel Nawrot Helgren & Vance. During this time, Vance taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at Seattle University School of Law.
In 2004, Vance returned to New York, where he joined Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, P.C. as a principal.
Vance is admitted to the bar in New York State, Washington state, and Washington, D.C., and to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of New York and Western and Eastern Districts of Washington, and the U.S. Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.
Vance is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America – The New York Area’s Best Lawyers and New York’s Superlawyers – Manhattan Edition.
Public service
Vance was a consulting expert to the Office of Family and Children Ombudsman in its investigation of the Wenatchee child abuse prosecutions, and served as Special Assistant New York State Attorney General representing the state in investigations and litigation. He has served on sentencing commissions in two states, including New York, where he served on the Governor's Sentencing Commission, which helped overhaul New York's Rockefeller drug laws.Vance also served, by appointment of the Governor of New York, as a member of the New York State Appellate Division, First Department, Judicial Screening Panel which makes recommendations on judicial appointments. Vance is a member of the Criminal Justice Council of the New York City Bar Association, the Federal Bar Council, and the New York Council of Defense Lawyers.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fund for Modern Courts, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation.
2009 New York County District Attorney election
In 2008, Vance announced his intention to seek the District Attorney's office only if current District Attorney Robert Morgenthau decided to retire. On March 9, 2009, 10 days after Morgenthau made his decision to retire public, Vance officially announced his candidacy for the office. In an April 8, 2009, appearance on Charlie Rose, Morgenthau said of Vance, "I think Vance is by far the best qualified. Good lawyer, fair." Morgenthau officially endorsed Vance on June 25.Other Democrats who endorsed Vance included former Mayor David Dinkins, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Gloria Steinem,
Caroline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and Innocence Project co-founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and New York Amsterdam News also endorsed Vance.
Vance stated that as Manhattan District Attorney, he would develop a program of "Community Based Justice", in which teams of prosecutors would be aligned to specific precincts and communities so as to develop a working relationship with community members, police officers, and local organizations. According to Vance, the Community Based Justice Program would make crime reduction a central measure of performance. Vance has also proposed a plan designed to reduce the year-long case backlog in the New York Criminal Court where the overwhelming majority of criminal cases are brought. In addition to processing cases, Vance has expressed his commitment to establishing a conviction integrity panel to carefully review allegations of wrongful conviction and promoting alternatives to incarceration that do not compromise public safety.
Vance states that he has always been opposed to the death penalty.
Vance emerged victorious after facing former judge and 2005 D.A. candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder, and Richard Aborn, another former Assistant District Attorney and gun control advocate, in the September 15, 2009, Democratic primary. The victory ensured that Vance would become only the fourth person to run the office since 1941, given the traditional absence during Morgenthau's tenure of a Republican backed opponent.
On November 3, 2009, Vance won the general election with a 91 percent share of the votes cast.
New York County District Attorney
Vance was sworn into office as the New York County District Attorney on January 1, 2010. Within a few months, he established or consolidated numerous new bureaus and units in an effort to modernize the District Attorney's Office. Vance's administration established a Conviction Integrity Program, Crime Strategies Unit, Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau, Forensic Sciences/ Cold Case Unit, Hate Crimes Unit, Public Integrity Unit, Special Victims Bureau, and Vehicular Crimes Unit.Notable cases
In 2011, a New York prosecutor from Vance's office argued on behalf of billionaire and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to New York Supreme Court Judge Ruth Pickholtz, asking for Epstein's sex offender status to be reduced. The reasoning was that Epstein had not been indicted and his underage victims had failed to cooperate in the case. Pickholtz, however, denied the petition, and expressed bewilderment that a New York prosecutor would make such a request on behalf of a serial sex offender accused of molesting multiple girls: "I have to tell you, I’m a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this. I have done so many much less troubling than this one where the would never make a downward argument like this." Jennifer Gaffney, then deputy chief of Vance's sex crimes unit, stated at the hearing that, “There is only an indictment for one victim. If an offender is not indicted for an offense, it is strong evidence that the offense did not occur.” Pickholz rejected Gaffney's arguments and gave Epstein the highest sex-offender status – Level 3. In 2019, Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. The New York Times reported in 2019 that Vance "said the request was a mistake and had been made by Ms. Gaffney without his knowledge."Vance's recent successes include the sentencing of a serial rapist to 428 years to life in prison; sentencing of a man to 23 years to life in prison for a domestic violence murder; indictments against 26 individuals living in Manhattan who possessed violent child pornography; the sentencing of a man to at least 15 years in prison for a 2000 rape; a sentencing of a man to 25 to life in prison for a 1997 home invasion and murder; an indictment against another man for a 1986 rape and murder; and the guilty plea of a man for attacking a woman in the restroom of a bar in Hell's Kitchen.
Vance has also won convictions in an October 2009 drunk driving incident that killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, resulting in the creation of Leandra's Law; and a case of two men in a 2005 murder-for-hire plot. In January 2011, the District Attorney's Forensic Sciences/ Cold Case Unit announced an indictment against serial killer Rodney Alcala for two Manhattan homicides in the 1970s.
Vance's newly created Major Economic Crimes Bureau has won convictions in the $120 million art fraud prosecution of the Salander-O'Reilly Gallery, the gallery's president Lawrence Salander and director Leigh Morse, in which Robert De Niro was one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution; a $100 million-dollar securities fraud scheme in which Yale University was one of the victims; a $100 million-dollar mortgage fraud case; and a $7 million-dollar Ponzi scheme. The District Attorney's Office in June 2011 announced indictments in a conspiracy involving 11 corporations who evaded U.S. economic sanctions on Iran by funneling tens of millions of dollars through Manhattan banks. To date, Vance's administration has brought hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to New York City.
Cyrus Vance prosecuted programmer Sergey Aleynikov for duplicating computer code from Goldman Sachs, following the reversal of his federal conviction by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The state case found Aleynikov guilty. However, on July 6, 2015, a New York State Supreme Court justice overturned that decision, but an appellate court reinstated the jury's guilty verdict on January 24, 2017. 148 AD3d 77 , affirmed, 31 NY3d 383 .
In 2020, a New York City police officer was filmed punching and pepper-spraying a homeless man in the face. According to the police officer, he sustained swelling to his hand after the man allegedly kicked him while handcuffed to the platform. Vance's office has charged the homeless man with felony assault, punishable by up to seven years in prison. The Legal Aid society notes that the police originally charged the man with lesser crimes, but Vance's office chose to upgrade the charges: "It's shocking that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, despite seeing this video, chose to bump up the charges against our client. We are calling on them to dismiss these charges immediately in the interest of justice." Following scrutiny and criticism after footage was released to the public, Vance's office dropped some of the charges, but Legal Aid calls for the other charges to also be dropped, as well as for the officers to be sanctioned.