Diary of a DA: The True Story of the Prosecutor Who Took on the Mob, Fought Corruption, and Won

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In 1961, twenty-five-year-old Herbert Jay Stern, fresh from reserve duty, stood in his green army uniform in a New York County courtroom to be sworn in as an attorney. He could only guess what his life as a prosecuting lawyer would be. A dozen years later, in the wake of the national scandal of Watergate, Stern, draped in black robes now, would take the oath of office as a federal judge. In the years between, the idealistic young Stern would sharpen his skills in the realities of the criminal courts of New York City, to emerge as the lead trial attorney for the Justice Department, charged with breaking the back of organized crime in New Jersey.
Sterns highly charged account of his outright war against powerful state government officials and the mafia takes us deep inside the mechanisms of law and order during a time when assassinations came fast and loose, cities were burning in race riots, and racketeering and graft were so prevalent in the Garden State that its own senator called it a stench in the nostrils and an offense to the vision of the world. Before Stern and his equally dedicated colleagues on the strike force out of Washington, D.C., are finished, they will have successfully prosecuted the mayors of Jersey City, Newark, and Atlantic City for being on the take; a congressman for conspiracy, tax violations, and perjury; and blackened the eye of organized crime.

Reviews

An honest examination of how the justice system really works in the minor criminal courts of New York City. . . .more than a page-turner of a true crime story. --The Star-Ledger

Stern is a fascinated observer, thoroughly honest in both his job and his writing about it....It details the gritty realities of a prosecutor's office that few people witness. --Philadelphia Inquirer

Author Bio

HERBERT J. STERN is considered one of the most famous district attorneys in the history of the United States. He helped catch the killers of Malcolm X, indicted the head of the French CIA for shipping 100 pounds of heroin into the United States, prosecuted the real-life Tony Soprano, and convicted the mayors of Newark, Jersey City, and Atlantic City. He currently lives in New Vernon, New Jersey.