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Daniel Wise
February 8, 2006

In the frightening days following the 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, Denise O'Donnell, now a candidate for state attorney general, led an investigation that developed crucial information against one of the bombers, Timothy J. McVeigh.

At the time, Ms. O'Donnell was the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York in Buffalo. Mr. McVeigh had grown up in nearby Pendleton. Interviews by Ms. O'Donnell's team with his father and sister, coupled with the service of search warrants, uncovered evidence that helped convict Mr. McVeigh, including a letter he had written to his sister warning that something big was going to happen in the first week in April (the blast occurred on April 19).

Ms. O'Donnell argues that it is this kind of hands-on experience during her 17 years at the Buffalo federal prosecutor's office that distinguishes her from a crowded field of contenders for the Democratic nomination to succeed Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor this year.

Ms. O'Donnell - who became U.S. attorney in 1997, a job she held until 2001 - said her greatest strength is the ability to closely coordinate multi-agency investigations, as she did in a three-year manhunt that drew upon state, federal and foreign law enforcement agencies and ended with the 2001 arrest in France of James Kopp, murderer of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, who provided abortion services in the Buffalo area.

The other Democratic candidates are Andrew M. Cuomo, the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo and a secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the Clinton administration; Mark Green, a former city public advocate who was defeated in the 2001 mayoral race by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; Westchester County Assemblyman Richard Brodsky; Charlie King, a former head of the New York-New Jersey region for HUD in the Clinton administration, who twice unsuccessfully sought the Democrats' nomination for lieutenant governor; and Sean P. Maloney, an associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher who was staff secretary for President William J. Clinton for four years.

On the Republican side, former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro is seeking the GOP nomination after abandoning her bid to unseat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. And Chauncey Parker, the top criminal justice official in the Pataki administration, is reportedly weighing a run. Staten Island District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr. announced yesterday that he will not be a candidate (See News In Brief).

Official Corruption

In a recent interview at the Law Journal, Ms. O'Donnell said she wants to "follow in the footsteps" of Mr. Spitzer in casting the office as one that will "fight for us," through corporate corruption, environmental and worker-protection lawsuits.

But she vowed to more aggressively pursue governmental corruption cases.

The attorney general has jurisdiction to investigate corruption in state agencies. But Ms. O'Donnell promised to forge good relations with prosecutors throughout the state, and either assist in the prosecution of cases or, if requested, take them over. In some instances, she said, local prosecutors are eager to have an outside agency take over a corruption investigation.

That was certainly the case in a probe her office conducted that resulted in the convictions of seven police officers in Buffalo for stealing money and jewelry from drug dealers. State prosecutors were "concerned, because of the need to maintain a close working relationship with the police department," she said.

Ms. O'Donnell suggested that her upstate ties would add important balance to the Democratic ticket. Now that Mr. Spitzer has selected as his running mate Senate Minority Leader David A. Paterson over Leecia Eve, the daughter of Arthur Eve, a well-known former assemblyman from Buffalo, Ms. O'Donnell is the only Democrat from the area running for statewide office and the only woman.

Middle-of-the-Road Stands

Ms. O'Donnell expressed a middle-of-the-road position on several hot-button issues. She said it was "important to make sure police follow constitutional procedures" and expressed "deep concerns" over the Bush administration's decision to eavesdrop on phone calls in connection with national security investigations without first obtaining a warrant. But, said she, she is willing to give Mr. Bush the "benefit of the doubt" when he says he had reasons for ordering the wiretaps that are so sensitive they cannot be disclosed.

On gun control, Ms. O'Donnell firmly supports the ban of assault weapons and lawsuits that were brought by both Mr. Spitzer and New York City seeking to curb the flow of illegal guns into New York. But, she added, the need for tighter controls can be reconciled with "the Second Amendment and the rights of hunters and others to use guns for lawful purposes."

Questioned about gay marriage, she said, "Everyone has the right to get married." And she stated she supports the civil confinement of sexual predators after they serve their prison terms because "science and experience shows that persistent sexual offenders cannot - and do not - stop."

Backed by Big-Name Lawyers

Ms. O'Donnell has put together an impressive lawyers' fund-raising committee, though she has raised only about $750,000 so far- $400,000 of it in the last six months. As of mid-January, all the other contenders had reported raising at least $1.2 million. Mr. Cuomo led with a war chest of $4.7 million.

President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, is the chairwoman of Ms. O'Donnell's lawyers' committee, and its six principal members include former Southern District U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, now at Debevoise & Plimpton, and former Eastern District U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch, of Hogan & Hartson.

Among the nearly 50 lawyers who have allowed their names to be used in a fund-raising/volunteer appeal are attorneys at some of the state's best-known firms, including Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Kaye Scholer; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Phillips Lytle; Nixon Peabody; Kelley, Drye & Warren; Proskauer Rose; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

Ms. Reno, who was attorney general during the four years Ms. O'Donnell was U.S. attorney, said in an interview that she agreed to head Ms. O'Donnell's lawyers' committee because Ms. O'Donnell was "one of the ablest persons I worked with and was effective in implementing her priorities."

Ms. Reno said she first met Ms. O'Donnell when Ms. O'Donnell was an assistant U.S. attorney responsible for the Buffalo office's Medicaid fraud program. Ms. O'Donnell had organized the program so well, Ms. Reno said, that Ms. Reno used it as a model for other Medicaid fraud efforts around the country.

David M. Brodsky, a partner at Latham & Watkins, said he met Ms. O'Donnell when the two were co-counsel on a case and he was impressed with her litigation skills.

Mr. Brodsky, who as a special prosecutor won a perjury conviction against Michael Deaver, a top aide to President Ronald Reagan, said Ms. O'Donnell, who spent 10 years as a social worker before going to law school, brings "a human touch" to prosecuting cases. She is interested in rehabilitation as well as punishment, and is also concerned about crime victims and the consequences of crime, he said.

Another supporter, Erik D. Lindauer, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, has known Ms. O'Donnell since the two were students together at Buffalo School of Law. Mr. Lindauer said he likes the idea of having a professional prosecutor as attorney general.

"She wants the job for what it is and has no agenda other than being a good attorney general," he said.

Buffalo Native

Except for a stint as a social worker in New York City, Ms. O'Donnell, 58, has lived in the Buffalo area her entire life. She is married to Supreme Court Justice John F. O'Donnell, who sits in Buffalo.

Her father worked in sales for Westinghouse and several other Buffalo-based companies; her mother was a homemaker. Ms. O'Donnell was the first in her family to graduate from college.

After graduation from Canisius College, she went to work as a child protection worker in Coney Island. As a social worker, Ms. O'Donnell had extensive experience with child abuse and neglect cases.

She decided to become a lawyer because "my focus was on civil rights and economic injustice issues, and I felt that a law degree would better equip me to deal with those issues."

Ms. O'Donnell entered Buffalo Law when her son, Jack, was 2 years old. Her daughter, Maura, was born the day before a scheduled corporations exam during her second year. Ms. O'Donnell took the exam a week later.

Ms. O'Donnell took a semester off from law school to work on a suit which desegregated Buffalo's schools. Following her graduation summa cum laude, she worked for four years as a law clerk for Justice Delores M. Denman of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department. In 1985, she began her 17 years at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo.

As an assistant U.S. attorney, she handled a number of significant political corruption cases, including the successful prosecution of a sheriff in Niagara County and several of his deputies for stealing about $200,000 by submitting fake purchase orders. She also successfully prosecuted the head of the Veteran's Hospital in Buffalo for taking kickbacks from the salaries of persons he hired.

As first assistant U.S. attorney, she personally prosecuted Don Jacobs, a leader of an anti-tax group who was convicted of conspiring with the group's followers to use phony financial documents to defraud creditors.

And in Rochester, following the killing of three police officers in a single day, she set up a multi-agency task force to take a more aggressive approach to the prosecution of gun crimes and to publicize the effort.

Since leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office in 2001, she has been a partner at the Buffalo firm of Hodgson Russ, where she has defended white-collar cases, responded to regulatory investigations, and advised clients with respect to corporate ethics requirements.

- Daniel Wise can be reached at dwise@alm.com.