Standing arm-in-arm with her two children at a fund-raiser last night, the Republican state attorney general candidate, Jeanine Pirro, lashed out at newspaper accounts regarding her marriage and vowed to fight for all New York families, including her own.

The fund-raiser was attended by hundreds of supporters even though the original host, Mayor Giuliani, pulled out of the event last week after it was disclosed that the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating whether Mr. Pirro broke federal law by discussing planting a listening device on her husband’s boat. That discussion, with a former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, took place after Ms. Pirro began to suspect her husband was having an affair. Her husband, Albert Pirro, a lobbyist whose brushes with the law have affected her wife’s political campaigns in the past, also did not attend last night’s fund-raiser.

Governor Pataki stepped in as a last-minute host, but he opted to give only a short speech via a satellite connection. Instead of attending in person, he was in Schenectady County for a GOP event. Aides to the governor said that event was on the governor’s schedule much earlier, and Ms. Pirro took many opportunities to mention that it was “previously scheduled.”

Tickets for the Pirro fund-raiser, held at the New York Marriot East Side, ranged form $250 to $2,500. Attendees were treated to a seafood fricassee. An aide for Ms. Pirro said the event aimed to raise $300,000. Last night’s attendance was “what we expected,” he said.

Ms. Pirro’s daughter, Christine, 21, was by many accounts the star of yesterday’s fund-raiser. She is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and is applying to law school. She said she decided to speak after reading an account in the New York Post that detailed her mother’s spending habits. She called the article “desperate, disgusting, and a lie.”

“My mother has worked hard my entire life to keep our family together,” Ms. Pirro said, to thunderous cheers. “There are not enough lies and leaks to break this family. And they are not going to stop my mom on Election Day either.”

Observing from the back of the room, Ms. Pirro’s chief campaign fundraiser, Patrick Donohue, said: “You just saw a young Jeanine Pirro.”

Mouthing, “I love you” to her son, Alex, 17, along the way, the elder Pirro strode to the podium and spoke about the importance of defending families in the state. The words she used to describe sexual predators at times mirrored her attacks on U.S. Attorney Elliot Jacobson, whom Ms. Pirro has blamed for leaking sealed court documents to the press to damage her reputation.

“I’m going to make sure your families are protected from the predators roaming this state,” she said.

Ms. Pirro said she would spend the remaining 35 days until Election Day working “18 hours a day, seven days a week” if she had to. “That’s just who I am,” she said.

“I will not be cowed. I will not bend over. I will not fall to the ground,” she said.

Many of the attendees said they had made sure to be there last night after news of the federal investigation came out last week.

“I think it’s outrageous,” Debbie Jaffee of the Bronx said. “I think it’s a very weak tactic on the Democrats’ part. I want to know why we aren’t hearing about Andrew Cuomo’s divorce from his wife, a Kennedy.”

“This is not about what goes on in people’s bedrooms,” Mr. Pataki’s chief of staff, John Cahill, said. “This is about the future of New York State.”