U.S. Atty. White’s Modesty Belies Her Tenacity

She entered the courtroom quietly and sat alone in a back row.

From her unassuming manner, she could have been a spectator who stood in line and was lucky enough to be admitted to opening arguments at the trial of four followers of Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden, accused of killing 224 people in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

If ever appearances were deceiving.

Some prosecutors sweep into court surrounded by aides. That is not the style of Mary Jo White, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has launched a criminal investigation into former President Clinton’s late-night pardon of fugitive commodities broker Marc Rich.

It was Clinton who named White to her post in 1993, on the recommendation of former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).

White is registered as an independent, and law enforcement officials say that party affiliations mean nothing to her when it comes to prosecutorial decisions.

“She is totally apolitical,” said Andrew J. Maloney, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who hired White as his chief assistant.

“When I first interviewed her, she impressed me completely by ordering a beer instead of white wine,” Maloney, a Republican, said. “She was not the routine New York inside lawyer type. Mary Jo is not one of those lawyers who goes around wearing her brains on her sleeve.”

To the uninitiated, White’s modesty hides the toughness, the attention to detail, that are hallmarks of her more than seven years in an office with a conviction rate of 95%.

“I would be amazed if the opening the government gave in this [embassy bombings] trial was given without her looking at it and marking it up,” said Mark Pomerantz, a lawyer in private practice who headed the criminal division under White from 1997 to 1999.

“She is unassuming. But she is not a weak personality by any means,” Pomerantz said. “When she is convinced something is the right thing to do she is absolutely fearless.”

It is no secret that White--who was not consulted before Clinton pardoned Rich--is incensed. Her office had been trying for 17 years to extradite Rich from Switzerland for trial.

Apart from the Justice Department in Washington, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York is the nation’s busiest federal prosecutor. Last year, the office handled 3,910 criminal cases and 2,461 civil cases. Its mandate covers Manhattan, the Bronx and six counties north of New York City, stretching to the foothills of the Catskills. Wall Street is in its backyard.

The office has a long and distinguished history of independence. More than 200 prosecutors toil on a variety of cases ranging from major securities frauds to police corruption, international money laundering, racketeering, narcotics trafficking and terrorism.

Some former prosecutors believe history will best remember White, 53, for the international terrorism trials she has directed since the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The prosecution now taking place of the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa is the fifth such trial in the Southern District.

“Her legacy will be the terrorist cases,” said Paul Shechtman, who was chief of the criminal division under White in 1993 and 1994.

“Main Justice had enormous confidence in her, and she had the confidence of the FBI, and she succeeded,” he said.

“Why were bombings in the Philippines tried in New York City? The short answer to that is Mary Jo White,” Shechtman said.

People familiar with the way White runs her office say she is far more open to dissenting opinions than New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who also served as U.S. attorney for that district.

White, according to a staff member, presses her prosecutors for their true feelings on issues, telling them she needs their candor to make decisions.

She is very much a team player, taking pains that other government agencies share in the glow of victory in major cases.

“She was sensitive to people and she was at the same time tough as nails when she had to be--a very unusual person,” said James K. Kallstrom, who headed the New York office of the FBI and worked with White on numerous investigations.

“You could go into a room at any law enforcement meeting, and when she came in, the conversation would not stop,” he said. “People are extremely open with her and honest with her.”

Other prosecutors said White fights hard to get cases.

“She has enormous pride in the competence of her assistants,” said Zachary W. Carter, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn from 1993 to 1999.

“I think she, as a result of that pride, had the view that cases could best be prosecuted in her office. She fights to have cases handled by her office when there is a venue dispute.”

Carter, a friend of White, said his office cooperated with White on far more cases than they disputed.

Staff members say that White obviously loves her job. She was offered a judgeship on the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit but turned it down to remain as a prosecutor.

White received a bachelor of arts degree in 1970 from the College of William and Mary, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1971, she was awarded a master’s in psychology from the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. Three years later, she graduated from Columbia University Law School at the top of her class.

White left the lucrative world of private practice to take her prosecutor’s post. Her husband is a senior partner at a Manhattan law firm.

Associates say she is a fierce tennis player who once out-psyched and outscored a male opponent who bragged about his game by showing up at the tennis court on a motorcycle with the song, “I Am Woman,” blaring from the loudspeakers.

White roots fiercely for the New York Yankees, has season tickets and baseball fantasies.

She once said half-jokingly that, aside from being U.S. attorney, she would like to be baseball commissioner.