Pirro Show Makes Its Way To Television
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WHITE PLAINS — A former district attorney of Westchester, Jeanine Pirro, rebounding from her recent personal and political problems, is becoming a judge — on a new court-type TV show that plans to make use of her considerable “life experience.”
The CW network announced yesterday that Ms. Pirro, who has been doing legal commentary on television, will be the presiding jurist on “Judge Jeanine Pirro,” weekday afternoons beginning September 22.
“Everyone has had ups and down in their lives,” Mrs. Pirro said in a telephone interview. “The people who come to court want justice but they need a judge who understands those ups and downs.”
Hilary Estey McLoughlin, the president of Telepictures Productions, which is making the show, said Mrs. Pirro has “a powerful and dynamic television presence with a distinctive point of view, and depth of professional and life experience.”
Mrs. Pirro, 56, was once a rising star in New York’s Republican Party. She was a popular Westchester County judge, a big winner in three consecutive runs for district attorney, and was chosen for People magazine’s “most beautiful” issue. Analysts said she would have been a natural for higher office, except that her wealthy husband, Albert Pirro, seemed to have a knack for holding her back with his own problems, including a paternity suit and a federal tax-fraud conviction.
Mrs. Pirro deciding to challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton and run for the Senate in 2005. But her campaign opened disastrously when a page of her announcement was misplaced and she was speechless for 32 seconds. Mrs. Pirro eventually switched to the race for state attorney general, but was easily defeated by Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.
After leaving office, her performance as district attorney was questioned. A convicted murderer, released due to new DNA evidence, claimed Mrs. Pirro had turned a deaf ear to his claims of innocence, which she denied. And in another murder case, a federal judge found that Mrs. Pirro’s office had withheld evidence so important that the convicted killer deserved to be set free.
Meanwhile, she came under federal investigation because she allegedly spoke with former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik about how she could secretly record her husband when she suspected him of having an affair. No charges were filed against her.
