Carl Vergari, ex- Westchester County (NY) DA, 84; oversaw the conviction of Jean Harris for the murder of Dr. Herman Tarnower
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(AP) BRONXVILLE, N.Y. Carl Vergari, who streamlined criminal justice in
Westchester County during a record 25 years as district attorney, has
died at age 84.
Vergari died Sunday in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he had retired. A
funeral is scheduled for Friday in Bronxville, the McGrath & Son
funeral home said Monday.
Vergari oversaw two of Westchester's most sensational cases -- the
conviction of schoolmistress Jean Harris in the 1980 shooting death of
her lover, Scarsdale Diet developer Herman Tarnower, and the
second-trial conviction of Carolyn Warmus in the "Fatal Attraction"
murder of her lover's wife.
As district attorney, he instituted branch offices throughout
Westchester, ending a system that haphazardly handled minor crimes.
Partly as a result, the number of assistant district attorneys grew
from 17 to 109.
Among them was Jeanine Pirro, whom Vergari named to head a domestic
violence unit. She succeeded him in 1994, served 12 years and is now
the Republican candidate for state attorney general. He once accused
her of "self-aggrandizement."
Vergari, born in Yonkers, graduated from Fordham University and St.
John's Law School, with time out for combat as a Marine in World War
II. For 10 years he was a prosecutor in the Manhattan district
attorney's office, and for another 10 years he was on the State
Investigation Commission.
In 1968, he was appointed Westchester district attorney by Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller to fill a vacancy. When he left office, he continued
working at law firms until retiring to his winter home in Florida.
Vergari is survived by his wife Genevieve; his daughter, Jeanne
Martinelli; and four grandchildren.
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Former D.A. Vergari dies
By BRUCE GOLDING
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Carl A. Vergari, who overhauled and expanded Westchester County's
criminal-justice system during 25 years as district attorney, died
yesterday in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 84 and had been in failing
health after suffering a head injury in a fall.
Vergari's tenure was the longest of any Westchester district attorney
and followed his two decades as a hard-charging Manhattan prosecutor
and a rackets-busting lawyer for the State Investigation Commission.
But he also faced criticism toward the end of his tenure in office for
failing to prosecute alleged wrongdoing by fellow Republicans.
During his 25 years in office, he streamlined prosecution of minor
crimes by opening eight branch offices across the county. The move
replaced the often-haphazard handling of misdemeanor cases by part-time
local prosecutors and private attorneys with a uniform operation
enforced by full-time assistant district attorneys.
As a result, the number of county prosecutors grew to 109 from 17, and
his annual office budget swelled to $12.4 million from just over
$700,000 when he took office.
When he retired in 1993, Vergari boasted a conviction rate of 95
percent, five points above the statewide rate. His prosecutors averaged
93 days from indictment to sentencing, almost twice as fast as the
statewide average.
"Obviously, he set the standard for Westchester during his reign," said
White Plains lawyer Bruce Bendish, who served as chief of the Homicide
Bureau under Vergari. "He modernized the office. He kept it up to date,
and it was recognized when he was the head of the office as one of the
premier offices in the country."
Among Vergari's innovations was establishing one of the nation's first
prosecution units devoted solely to punishing domestic violence and
child abuse. He chose as its head his eventual successor, Jeanine
Pirro, now the Republican candidate for attorney general.
But their relationship soured after Pirro, as district attorney, told
the New Yorker magazine that she had "persuaded" Vergari to apply for
money to fund the unit. Pirro's claim led her normally taciturn mentor
to issue a stinging public rebuke in which he slammed her for
"falsehoods made for the purpose of self-aggrandizement."
"Carl Vergari was a great district attorney who served the people of
Westchester County well. He changed the Westchester County's D.A.'s
office from a small country prosecutor's office to the metropolitan
D.A.'s office it is today," Pirro said in a prepared statement. "That
is his most lasting legacy. I am proud to have known him. My thoughts
and prayers are with his family."
Lawyer and political consultant Michael Edelman, who was a prosecutor
under Vergari and also ran his re-election campaigns, called his former
boss "a straight shooter who was only interested in prosecuting
according to law."
"Everybody knew he was straight as an arrow," Edelman said. "If you
broke the law, you got prosecuted. If you didn't break the law, you
didn't get prosecuted."
Edelman recalled an incident that occurred one year when Vergari was
running for re-election and his office was conducting an investigation
that involved the late ice-cream tycoon Tom Carvel.
After a day of campaigning, the two returned to Vergari's home on
Grassy Sprain Road in Yonkers, where they found $5,000 in cash inside a
brown paper bag, Edelman said.
"We drove to the Carvel Inn, put the money on the desk and said:
'Thanks, but no thanks,' " he said.
White Plains lawyer Arthur Del Negro Jr., who was among the prosecutors
inherited by Vergari, rose to become head of the Frauds Bureau. One of
his assignments, he said, was a probe of the Yonkers Republican Party,
Vergari's political base.
"I said to him, 'Any special instructions?' He said, 'Yes, just don't
headhunt. I don't care who you indict as long as it's based on the
evidence and not on who the person is,' " Del Negro recalled. "He said,
'Play it down the middle.' "
White Plains lawyer Peter Goodrich, who was Vergari's deputy in charge
of the Trial Division, said his former boss' legacy included the more
than two dozen prosecutors who went on to become judges.
"He was the kind of guy that spoke to people about justice," Goodrich
said. "He just inspired people to do the right thing."
Former state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Facelle, who served as
Vergari's first chief assistant district attorney, said Vergari also
inspired great loyalty among his employees.
Earlier this year, Vergari joined more than 150 former prosecutors for
a gala reunion of the "Vergari associates," Facelle said.
"Anyone who served under Carl was close to him as a person and a boss,"
he said. "I loved this guy."
Vergari wasn't without his detractors, however, and political opponents
questioned his efforts fighting organized crime, labor racketeering and
political corruption. The criticism increased as his stay in office
lengthened.
In 1989, county Democrats accused him of sandbagging an investigation
into the county-owned Playland Amusement Park in Rye after the director
was accused of ordering employees there to do political work on county
time.
After reports in the newspapers that became The Journal News revealed
that the District Attorney's Office did not subpoena Republican
Committee financial records and personnel, Vergari conceded "maybe I
should have."
The records were later subpoenaed and led to a grand jury report, but
no further indictments.
And in 1990, a Republican state justice called for a special prosecutor
to investigate "significant irregularities" in Vergari's probe of Ed
Brady, the former Republican chairman of the county legislature.
Justice Nicholas Colabella concluded that a grand jury was "steered"
away from indicting Brady over allegations that he let his sons'
plumbing company use his master plumber's license to get permits. The
panel also heard evidence that the sons' company won $650,000 in county
contracts while Brady was chairman.
White Plains lawyer William Aronwald, who was among Vergari's harshest
critics - he once accused Vergari of playing golf on county time - said
much of the hard feelings were left over from their professional
rivalry when Aronwald headed the region's federal Organized Crime
Strike Force.
"Carl and I had our differences, but in the end I don't have anything
but respect for his long history of service to the public," he said.
Vergari's political popularity led to an unprecedented seven election
victories in a row, almost all with 65 percent or more of the vote.
His career was marked by only one defeat, when he ran for U.S. House of
Representatives in 1972 in what was then the all-Westchester 24th
Congressional District.
The victor in that race, former U.S. Rep. Ogden Reid of Waccabuc, said
Vergari ran a "fair, upfront" campaign, and recalled him as a friend.
"I thought he was a fine individual and a fine district attorney, and I
think he rendered distinguished service to Westchester," Reid said
Vergari, the son of Italian immigrants, was born Dec. 7, 1921, in
Yonkers. He attended local public schools and graduated from Fordham
University. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and saw combat in the
Pacific theater before being discharged as a captain and company
commander.
After the war, Vergari graduated from St. John's Law School in 1948 and
worked for 10 years as a prosecutor in Manhattan for renowned District
Attorney Frank Hogan. During that time he also earned a master's degree
in law from New York University.
There Vergari met one of his oldest friends, former Bronx
Administrative Judge Burton Roberts, who at the time also worked as a
young assistant district attorney. Roberts later went on to become
district attorney of the Bronx about the same time Vergari became
district attorney of Westchester.
"He was an excellent trial lawyer and a very honorable gentleman,"
Roberts said. "He would see to it that in the cases he represented, he
did what was fair and right," Roberts said.
Roberts, who was then unmarried, said he couldn't recall a Christmas he
was not invited to Vergari's home.
"He was a good friend. It's really hard to lose a good friend. He
respected me; I respected him."
Vergari eventually left the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to
join the newly formed State Investigation Commission, where he spent
another 10 years, the last seven as chief counsel.
In 1968, he was appointed Westchester district attorney by Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller to fill a vacancy created when District Attorney Leonard
Rubenfeld was elected a county judge.
As district attorney, Vergari oversaw the prosecution of several
notorious cases, including the murder convictions of private school
headmistress Jean Harris in the 1980 shooting of her longtime lover,
Dr. Herman Tarnower, creator of the once-fashionable "Scarsdale Diet,"
after he left her for a younger woman, and teacher Carolyn Warmus in
the 1989 "Fatal Attraction" shooting of her lover's wife.
Other headline-grabbing trials ended less successfully, however, such
as the prosecution of Luis Marin, who was found guilty in the deaths of
26 executives in the 1980 Stouffer's Inn fire, but had his convictions
overturned by the trial judge, and the acquittal of Swiss nanny Olivia
Riner in the 1991 fatal burning of a Thornwood infant.
More recently, former Peekskill High School student Jeffrey Deskovic
was exonerated and freed from prison last month after DNA testing
implicated someone else in the rape and murder of a classmate for which
Deskovic was wrongly convicted in 1990.
After leaving office, Vergari joined two law firms headed by
high-profile personal injury lawyer David Worby, who called him "a
great lawyer and a great guy."
"No one knew more about the courthouse and the ins and outs of
litigation," Worby said. "Clients would walk in, and they would just
feel that whenever Carl sat in on the meetings that was like the Father
Time of Westchester."
Worby said, however, that Vergari was never the same after the death of
his son, Bohn, from leukemia in 2002.
Current Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore was among those who
recognized Vergari's contributions as a mentor to those in the county's
legal community. Last night, she called him a man of "great intellect,
judgment and compassion," who was "best known for his outstanding
character and for unwavering integrity."
"There are hundreds of lawyers in the New York legal community who
looked to Carl Vergari as a teacher and mentor, including me," DiFiore
said in a written statement. "The group of lawyers mentored by Mr.
Vergari is known by the name 'Vergari Associates,' and at our latest
reunion in his honor this past year Mr. Vergari spoke eloquently about
his career as district attorney. Affectionately known in the district
attorney's office as 'Boss,' Mr. Vergari was my first boss and from my
first day in the D.A.'s office. He always supported me in my work and
career. Until the time of his final illness, I would frequently call on
Mr. Vergari and he was always there for me with sage advice and
excellent judgment."
Vergari, who had split his time between homes in Bronxville and
Florida, eventually retired to his winter home at the Breakers West
gated community and country club in West Palm Beach, where he lived
until recently moving to an assisted-living facility.