ALICE VACHSS

attorney, author, consultant & lecturer

"One of America's toughest prosecutors …" —PARADE, 1989

Photo of Alice Vachss and Honey Pit Bull, credit: © Eddie Adams Alice Vachss, JD, is the former Chief of the Special Victims Bureau of the Queens (NYC) District Attorney's Office. During her tenure, she tried more than 100 felony cases to verdict, including rape, child sexual assault, elder abuse, domestic violence, cult abuse, and homicide. Under her leadership, the Special Victims Bureau innovated new approaches and techniques in sex-crimes prosecution which ranged from trail-blazing the use of DNA evidence in New York courts, to firing the first shots in the still-current battle to modernize statutes of limitations for sexual assault. Ms. Vachss is the author of Sex Crimes (Random House, 1993), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. That book coined the term "collaborator" to describe those within the criminal-justice system who provide aid and comfort to perpetrators.

Before assuming leadership of the Special Victims Bureau, Ms. Vachss was a VISTA volunteer, a counselor in a maximum-security prison for violent youth, and a trial attorney in New York City's Legal Aid Criminal Defense Division. After publication of her book she specialized in such areas as campus sexual assault, elder sexual abuse, civil legal response to violence against women and, more recently, she returned to sex crimes prosecution. Her latter experiences lead her to write a sequel to her book. Both the original and the sequel have been released as an e-book entitled Sex Crimes: Then and Now.

Ms. Vachss continues to lecture and consult, nationally and internationally, and is the author of numerous articles, including "All Rape Is Real Rape" (New York Times Op-Ed). She now heads Pay What It Costs Publishing, LLC, a small press specializing in non-fiction solutions to violence e-books.

ALICE VACHSS

attorney, author, consultant & lecturer

Alice Vachss' Sex Crimes on HBO's "True Detectives"