`DRAGON LADY' TO RETIRE THIS MONTH ASSISTANT D.A. IS RENOWNED FOR HER FEARLESSNESS.Byline: RICK ORLOV Staff Writer With her flair for the dramatic and a no-nonsense attitude that borders on impatience, the prosecutor dubbed dub 1 tr.v. dubbed, dub·bing, dubs 1. To tap lightly on the shoulder by way of conferring knighthood. 2. To honor with a new title or description. 3. the ``Dragon Lady'' has announced she will retire this month. Lea Purwin D'Agostino, who has worked as an assistant district attorney for 29 years -- primarily in Van Nuys -- said she has decided to end her prosecuting career in late October to spend more time with her husband, Joe. ``I just feel it's time It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative (Liberal Party of Australia) government, Labor put forward a for me to give back to him,'' D'Agostino said. ``He has had to give up a lot over the years and I haven't been able to work as much in the courts as I would like.'' D'Agostino will continue to work for the District Attorney's Office, however, representing it in parole hearings before the state. D'Agostino, who refuses to give her age -- ``that's on a need-to-know basis and you don't need to know'' -- was the first female prosecutor to handle a death-penalty case, which involved the murders of two people in a drug-related incident. Big responsibility For D'Agostino, the case came to represent the responsibility of the job. ``I didn't really think about it until I got home after the verdict came in,'' D'Agostino said. ``I was convinced we were right in the case. But it depressed me until I realized that it was part of the awesome responsibility of being a prosecutor -- that what we do affects people and has an effect. ``But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Nothing can replace the feeling of a hug from a woman who was raped and seeing the attacker convicted or hearing thanks from a family who lost a child and you were able to convict To adjudge an accused person guilty of a crime at the conclusion of a criminal prosecution, or after the entry of a plea of guilty or a plea of nolo contendere. An individual who has been found guilty of a crime and, as a result, is serving a sentence as punishment for the act; the murderer.'' D'Agostino came late to the legal profession, graduating from the University of West Los Angeles The University of West Los Angeles (UWLA) is a private, non-profit School of Law with two campuses in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Inglewood and Woodland Hills, California. The School of Law is accredited by the Committee of Bar Examiners of The State Bar of California. Law School in 1976 after working for producer David Selznick, traveling around the world, working as a theatrical agent and running a Hollywood nightclub. ``I wanted to become a lawyer and I wanted to be a prosecutor. That's all I wanted,'' D'Agostino said. Political foray Except for her political ambitions. After a series of much publicized pub·li·cize tr.v. pub·li·cized, pub·li·ciz·ing, pub·li·ciz·es To give publicity to. Adj. 1. publicized - made known; especially made widely known publicised disputes with her then-boss District Attorney Ira Reiner Ira Reiner was Los Angeles City Controller from 1977 to 1981, and was City Attorney from 1981 to 1984, both times being succeeded by James Hahn. He was the Los Angeles County District Attorney from 1984 to 1992. , D'Agostino ran an unsuccessful campaign against him. In 2001, she was one of three top candidates for City Attorney, pulling enough votes from then-City Councilman Mike Feuer to block his win in the primary and lead to the election of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo Rockard John "Rocky" Delgadillo (born July 15 1960) is the current City Attorney of Los Angeles, California. Career
To those who have worked with her, the first words
First Words is a Canadian hip hop group, consisting of Halifax beatmaker Jorun, DJ STV and emcees Sean One & Above. to describe D'Agostino relate to her willingness to take on any case. ``She is absolutely fearless in a courtroom,'' former District Attorney Robert Philibosian said. ``I have never met anyone who is as hardworking as she is and fearless in her prosecution. ``I never had to rein her in. Hell, I was afraid to.'' Former Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian, who is serving as master of ceremonies at Thursday's tribute to D'Agostino, used a similar description. ``It is not only her courage, but she could handle the big cases and she always went the whole nine yards,'' Arabian said. ``She found a niche and carried it through for three decades and never stopped caring.'' In the spotlight Among her more famous cases involved manslaughter charges against ``Twilight Zone'' director John Landis -- which she lost. She also served as co-counsel against the ``Alphabet alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation between character (or letter) and phoneme (see phonetics). Few alphabets have achieved the ideal exactness. Bomber,'' Muharem Kurbegovic, so named because of firebombs he set off in alphabetical order -- beginning at the airport and then at a bus station and other targets. Kurbegovic was convicted on 25 counts of murder, arson arson, at common law, the malicious and willful burning of the house of another. Originally, it was an offense against the security of habitation rather than against property rights. and explosives-related charges involving the deaths of three people. ``During the trial, he gave everybody a nickname,'' D'Agostino said. ``One day he called me the Dragon Lady Dragon Lady beautiful Chinese temptress. [Comics: “Terry and the Pirates” in Horn, 653] See : Seduction . And it just stuck.'' rick.orlov@dailynews.com (213) 978-0390 CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Lea Purwin D'Agostino pursued many other careers before joining the legal profession. She earned the ``Dragon Lady'' nickname when prosecuting the so-called Alphabet Bomber. |
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