Gil Garcetti

Served as the District Attorney for Los Angeles County, the leader of the country's largest non-federal, prosecutorial agency from 1992 to 2000. In eight years as the District Attorney, and of more than a quarter million cases filed every year, Mr. Garcetti's office achieved a 92% conviction rate. He intentionally changed the face of the DA's office as well. His appointment of two women to high-ranking positions, promotions of women and ethnic minorities, and aggressive hiring of 400 new lawyers, helped change the composition of the office to gender parity and 30% ethnic diversity. In 1972, he helped found the nation's first prosecutorial agency to have a division devoted to consumer and environmental protection. In 1977, Mr. Garcetti was put in charge of the office's Special Investigation Division, whose sole jurisdiction was the investigation and prosecution of elected officials, police officers and other public officials. After working in various capacities in the District Attorney's office over the next several years, Mr. Garcetti ran for the position in 1992 and was elected. He was elected again in 1996. In 2000, after an unsuccessful third term re-election bid, Mr. Garcetti devoted himself to helping his son Eric campaign and win a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. Since July 2001, Mr. Garcetti has been devoting his time to the writing and photographing of his documentary photo book, entitled Iron: Building the Walt Disney Concert Hall, due in the fall of 2002. The son of Mexican immigrants, Mr. Garcetti was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Southern California, the London School of Economics, and received his J.D. degree from UCLA in 1967. Gil Garcetti has been married for 38 years to Sukey and they have a son, Eric and a daughter, Dana.