Gil Garcetti

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Gil Garcetti
Gil Garcetti 2010.jpg
Garcetti in 2010
40th District Attorney of Los Angeles County
In office
1992–2000
Preceded by Ira Reiner
Succeeded by Steve Cooley
Personal details
Born Gilbert Salvadore Iberri Garcetti
(1941-08-05) August 5, 1941 (age 71)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Sukey Roth
Children Eric Garcetti (son)
Dana Garcetti
Alma mater University of California, Los Angeles
University of Southern California

Gilbert Salvadore Iberri Garcetti (born August 5, 1941), best-known as Gil Garcetti, is an American politician. He served as Los Angeles County's 40th District Attorney for two terms, from 1992 until November 7, 2000.

Contents

Background[edit]

Garcetti is the son of Salvador Garcetti and Juanita Iberri. His father was born in Mexico and brought to the United States as a child after his father, Massimo Garcetti, a judge and emigrant to Mexico from Italy, was hanged during the Mexican Revolution. His mother was born in Arizona, one of 19 children born to emigrant parents from Sonora, Mexico.[1]

Garcetti received a bachelor's degree in Management from the University of Southern California and a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before becoming District Attorney, Garcetti served within the office for over twenty years, from trial prosecutor to managerial positions and eventually becoming chief deputy district attorney for his predecessor, Ira Reiner (District Attorney from 1984–92). Reiner declined to run for a third term, and Garcetti won the 1992 election.

Terms as District Attorney[edit]

First term[edit]

Entering the 1992 elections, LA County was still recovering from the aftermath of the highly publicized 1991 Rodney King beating at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the massive unrest of the 1992 LA Riots. His first term was dominated by his office's prosecution of the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial. The long, costly criminal trial ended with a "not guilty" verdict on October 3, 1995. Despite the setback, Garcetti won re-election in 1996, narrowly defeating challenger John Lynch.[2][3]

Second term[edit]

Garcetti focused both his terms working to solve a number of issues including domestic violence, hate crimes, welfare fraud and combating LA's street gangs. He refused to rescind judgments against men who later proved through DNA evidence that they were not the fathers in question, in the best interests of the child. By 2000, 79% of paternity judgements in Los Angeles County were assigned by default. It was the fight against gangs that became his undoing in late-1999, when the LAPD's Rampart scandal erupted with allegations of extreme police misconduct from the city's Rampart Division. Garcetti was drawn into a public dispute with LAPD Chief Bernard Parks over access to records on the charged officers.[citation needed]

The resulting squabbling and negative press reminded citizens of LA County of the troubles associated with the Rodney King riots, and the resulting sentiment led to Garcetti's defeat in the 2000 election. He was succeeded by one of his deputies, Steve Cooley, then serving as head of the city's Welfare Fraud Division, a division created by Garcetti.[citation needed]

Current activities[edit]

Politics[edit]

The 2000 election ended Garcetti's 32-year career with the LA County District Attorney's office. In 2002, Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla appointed Garcetti to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission for a five-year term. In the fall of 2002, Garcetti was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has been developing a foundation to help Latino and African-American students complete their high school education. He is currently a strong proponent of Proposition 34, an initiative that will replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. Garcetti believes that the death penalty is broken beyond repair, that it is "horrendously expensive" and that it carries the risk of executing an innocent person.[4]

Photography[edit]

Garcetti has always been an avid urban photographer. During his time as District Attorney he would carry a small camera with him at all times. After leaving the DA's office, Garcetti focused on art photography, initially producing two collections on the Walt Disney Concert Hall: Iron: Erecting the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Balcony Press 2002), focusing on the ironworkers who constructed the landmark, and Frozen Music (Balcony Press 2003), focusing on the finished building itself. Photos from these works were featured in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. and at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. His most recent exhibition, Dance in Cuba: Photographs by Gil Garcetti (Balcony Press 2005), was featured at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History in Spring 2006.[5] Water is Key: A Better Future for Africa (Balcony Press 2007) was published via a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to the Pacific Institute as a benefit to NGOs supporting clean water projects in Africa.[6]

Philanthropy[edit]

Garcetti made a presentation of his photographs of West Africa to an L.A. women's group, and the group's leader, Barbara Goldberg, was so moved by the images and Garcetti's impassioned description of the water crisis that she formed a nonprofit organization dedicated to drilling wells to bring safe water to West Africa. Garcetti sits on the Wells Bring Hope Board of Directors as the Vice President.[citation needed]

The Closer[edit]

Gil Garcetti served as a consulting producer on the TNT series The Closer since its debut in 2005. His son, Eric, made an appearance as the Mayor Ramon Quintero of Los Angeles on two episodes, and is in real life the current mayor-elect of Los Angeles.[7]

Personal life[edit]

Garcetti is married to Sukey Roth, who is of Russian-Jewish descent.[1][8] Gil and Sukey Garcetti have one son, Eric, who was elected to the LA City Council three times (2001, 2005, 2009), and is the current mayor-elect of Los Angeles, and one daughter, Dana Garcetti-Boldt, a former deputy district attorney in Garcetti's office[9] who is now an acupuncturist.[10]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Finnegan, Michael (January 2, 2013). "Eric Garcetti invokes Latino-Jewish ancestry in mayor's race". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 23, 2013. 
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ SafeCalifornia website
  5. ^ Abarbanel, Stacey (March 2, 2006). "‘Dance in Cuba: Photographs by Gil Garcetti’ Opens at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History April 22" (Press release). University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved May 23, 2013. 
  6. ^ Gleick, Peter (October 7, 2011). "Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Water for Africa, and the Nobel Peace Prize". Forbes. Retrieved May 23, 2013. 
  7. ^ IMDb profile of Eric Garcetti
  8. ^ Jewish Daily Forward: "Jews and Latinos Seek Common Ground In Los Angeles, It's a Hunt for Political 'Kosher Burrito'" by Rex Weiner. October 7, 2011
  9. ^ http://articles.latimes.com/1997-02-11/local/me-35985_1_district-attorney
  10. ^ http://www.acupuncture.com/newsletters/m_dec08/attorney%20acupuncturist.htm

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

Legal offices
Preceded by
Ira Reiner		 Los Angeles County District Attorney
1992–2000		 Succeeded by
Steve Cooley
Key figures
Judge
Prosecution figures
Defense figures
Witnesses
Other elements
Authority control
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