Robert Morgenthau

Morgenthau with President John F. Kennedy in 1962

In 1961, after twelve years of practicing corporate law, Morgenthau accepted an appointment from President John F. Kennedy as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.[3] In 1962, he was the Democratic nominee for Governor of New York, and resigned his federal office.[3] After his defeat by the incumbent Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Morgenthau was reappointed U.S. Attorney and served in that position for the remainder of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Morgenthau was eating lunch with Robert Kennedy when Kennedy received the news of his brother's murder in Dallas.[7]

In January 1969, following the election of President Richard Nixon, Morgenthau remained in office, and for months resisted increasingly public pressures from the Nixon Administration to resign.[3] He retained support from New York's liberal Republican U.S. Senators Jacob K. Javits and Charles Goodell. Morgenthau and his supporters claimed that replacing him would disrupt his work on vital cases, and that Nixon might be seeking to prevent Morgenthau from pursuing investigations that would prove embarrassing to the President or his friends. Nonetheless, Morgenthau's position became increasingly untenable. While well-regarded, he was after all a Democrat, thought to harbor political aspirations. Morgenthau's insistence on remaining in office seemed increasingly unreasonable. He was eventually forced out of office at the end of 1969.[8] Republican Whitney North Seymour Jr. was appointed as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Afterward, Morgenthau served briefly in the reformist administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay as a deputy mayor, before resigning to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 1970. Morgenthau was less successful in raising funds and developing support than were two other candidates, Arthur Goldberg and Howard Samuels, and within weeks, he withdrew from the race. Goldberg won the nomination, and was subsequently defeated by Rockefeller.[9]

Morgenthau remained in private life until 1974, when he was elected to the office of District Attorney of New York County. This was a special election caused by the death of Frank Hogan, who had served as DA for more than 30 years. Morgenthau defeated Hogan's interim successor, Richard Kuh.[3] He was elected to a full term in 1977, and was re-elected seven times. He was not opposed in a general election from 1985 to 2005.[10]

Morgenthau was criticized in the press for his conduct in the wake of a major police corruption scandal.[11] Eight men who were falsely arrested by New York City Transit Police officers in the scandal that shook the department were awarded more than $1 million in damages by a federal judge. One plaintiff, Ronald Yeadon, was a police officer. He was arrested twice while off duty and accused of sexually abusing a woman.[12]

Morgenthau retained a national profile while serving in what was technically a local office, in part because of his dogged pursuit of white-collar crime. According to Gary Naftalis, a prominent Manhattan defense attorney who had been an assistant to Morgenthau in the 1960s, Morgenthau believed that prosecuting "crime in the suites" was every bit as important as prosecuting "crime in the streets".[13]

At age 85 in 2005, Morgenthau announced that he would run for a ninth (eighth full) term as district attorney. For the first time in decades, he encountered a vigorous primary opponent – former state court judge Leslie Crocker Snyder.[14][15] Snyder won the endorsement of The New York Times, which, like virtually all of the city's establishment, had long supported Morgenthau.[16]

Morgenthau won the Democratic primary with 59% of the vote, to Snyder's 41%.[3] In the general election, he was once again the candidate for all political parties in the election, having been nominated by the Democrats, Republicans, and the Working Families Party.[17] Morgenthau won re-election with more than 99% of the vote.[3]

Morgenthau at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009

On February 27, 2009, Morgenthau announced that he would not seek re-election in 2009, saying: "I never expected to be here this long ... [R]ecently, I figured that I'd served 25 years beyond the normal retirement age."[18][19] He was succeeded in office by Cyrus Vance Jr., a prosecutor under Morgenthau and the son of former President Jimmy Carter's secretary of state Cyrus Vance. Morgenthau officially endorsed Vance on June 25.[20] Vance went on to win the primary election on September 15, 2009[21] and the subsequent general election on November 3.[22] On January 20, 2010, Morgenthau joined the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.[23][24]

Cases which Morgenthau's office prosecuted include:[25]

• Mark David Chapman (1981): Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of John Lennon and was sentenced to 20-years-to-life in prison. He has been denied parole multiple times and will likely never get out of jail.[26]
• Robert Chambers, the "Preppie Killer" (1988): Chambers pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin while the jury had the case and served 15 years in prison.[27]
• Central Park Jogger case (1989): Five teenaged suspects were wrongly convicted of assaulting and raping 28-year-old Trisha Meili in a "wilding" incident in the north section of Central Park. After Morgenthau's office investigated the confession in 2002 by another man, including finding that his DNA matched evidence at the scene, he recommended vacating the convictions of the five men and dismissal of charges, which the court accomplished.[28]
• Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz (2005): The top two executives of Tyco were found guilty of stealing more than $150 million from the company they had been entrusted to manage.[29]
• Tupac Shakur (1994), he was convicted in New York City of three charges of sexual molestation, and served nine months in prison.

• Sonia Sotomayor (1979–1984): Current Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
• Eliot Spitzer (1986–1992): Former Governor and Attorney General of New York State[30]
• Andrew Cuomo (1984–1985): Former Governor of New York, previously served as New York State Attorney General, and as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton[31]
• Lanny A. Breuer (1985–1989): Former head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice[32]
• John F. Kennedy Jr. (1989–1993): Son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, journalist, lawyer, and socialite[33]
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (1982–1983): Third child of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy
• Linda Fairstein (1976–2002): Former head of the Sex Crimes Unit, and current author of crime novels[34]
• Cyrus Vance Jr. (1982–1988): Former New York County District Attorney, son of Cyrus Vance, who was the Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter
• Jennifer Choe-Groves (1994-1997): Current Article III Judge, U.S. Court of International Trade

Morgenthau died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on July 21, 2019, after a short illness. He was ten days shy of his 100th birthday,[3] and is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, New York.