Manhattan’s next district attorney, Cy Vance, specializes in white-collar crime, is the son of a former secretary of state, and won recognition in legal circles for taking on the Boeing Corp. in a class-action discrimination case.
The Manhattan-born Vance, 55, a partner at the law firm Morvillo Abromowitz, also worked for legendary Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau as an assistant prosecutor in the 1980s.
Vance, who has never before held elective office, graduated from Yale University and Georgetown University Law School and, under Morgenthau, handled the well-known case of the 1986 slaying of Susana Jimenez, a Smith Barney employee killed at her job by her ex-fiancé.
He also worked in the DA Office’s Rackets Bureau, which probes corruption and criminal enterprises.
After leaving Morgenthau’s office, he moved to Seattle and co-founded a private law firm, McNaul Ebel Nawrot Helgren & Vance, where he succeeded in a class-action suit against Boeing on behalf of 29,000 female employees accusing the firm of discrimination against women.
Returning to New York in 2004, Vance served on Gov. Paterson’s Commission on Sentencing Reform, which helped overturn the state’s Rockefeller drug laws.
He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Peggy, and their 20- and 19-year-old children.