Transcript of interview with Judge Abbi Silver by Barbara Tabach, January 10, 2017

AN INTERVIEW WITH JUDGE ABBI SILVER An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Amanda Hammar iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader?s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE It is evident that a keen wit and persistent tenaciousness to protect victims of crime have earned Judge Abbi Silver the reputation that elevated her to her current position as Chief Judge of the Nevada Court of Appeals. She is the first female to hold this position. Judge Silver is a lifelong resident of southern Nevada. She was raised in Boulder City, where her family was the only Jewish family at the time. Her father was a doctor and eventually the family moved into Las Vegas, where she graduated from Clark High School and then University of Nevada, Las Vegas (1986). Always an overachiever, she worked multiple jobs?waitress, Utah Jazz cheerleader, dancer?while earning her undergraduate degree and then her law degree from Southwestern University of Law, in Los Angles (1989). In this oral history, Judge Silver recalls being a law clerk for Honorable Earle White, Jr., joining the Clark County District Attorney?s Office and being assigned as the Chief Deputy DA for the Special Victims Unit where she tried more than one hundred jury trials. She mentions other illustrious attorneys who she encountered, from Stewart Bell to Oscar Goodman to her mentor Judge Nancy Oesterle. Judge Silver came to understand the harsh realities of victims of domestic violence and stalking. Her cases included that of the stalking of comedian Jerry Lewis, Senator Harry Reid and many others. Then in 2003, she was elected to the Las Vegas Municipal Court and in 2006, she served the Las Vegas Justice Court. Then in 2009 and 2014, she was elected to the Eighth Judicial District Court and in 2014 she was appointed by Gov. Brian Sandoval to the Court of Appeals, Department 3. In 2017, she was appointed to the Nevada Supreme Court. For part of this oral history, Judge Silver is joined by Judge Joanna Kishner. Together they recall growing up together, being Jewish, and graduating from high school together with other notable Nevadans, and their individual successes as attorneys. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Judge Abbi Silver January 10 & February 7, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????????????..iv Ancestral roots are described??????????????????????????1 SESSION 1 Joanna Kishner and Abbi Silver talk about their friendship, attending Clark High School; mentions Catherine Cortez Masto and other successful women who also attended Clark High School and how the community is tied together. Mentions attending UNLV, friends from other high schools such as Bishop Gorman, Valley and Bonanza; success of local graduates such as Trevor Scherrer (Mirage Hotel/Casino), Scott Sibella (MGM) and Bill McBeath (Cosmopolitan). The talk about their parents as pioneers of the local Jewish community; activism and participation within the general community; Harmony Letizia?s election as justice of peace, the Mack family, Steinberg family.??????????????????????????????????.2 ? 5 Abbi and Joanna discuss BBYO, present and past generations of membership in BBYO, Girls State. Naomi, Michael and David Cherry; Alyssa Bergman. Abbi mentions how her father Dr. Frank Silver has touched so many families over the decades. Share stories of Joan Rivers attending Temple Beth Sholom services as well as while shopping at I. Magnins. [Note: Joanna leaves interview for an appointment.]??????????????????.?????.?..5 ? 7 Abbi?s story of Jerry Lewis and representing him in his case against a stalker. Mentions other stalker cases she became involved with, such as John Ensign, Harry Reid, Steve Wynn; expert witness Reid Meloy. Stew Bell. Prosecution team for high profile cases of John Bobbitt and Floyd Mayweather; enjoyment of her work being in the media, on TV shows, experience of working with high profile cases. Bite mark specialist Ray Rawson; challenges of balancing seriousness of her career with humor; mentions Cary Sayegh 1978 kidnapping; Oscar Goodman?????..8 ? 15 Talks about her early career work that included: John Momot; Oscar Goodman; David Chesnoff; Steve Stein. Mentions prosecution of Fat Herbie Blitzstein; protective nature of Momot; meeting Michael Cherry. Worked at Caesars Palace as a lifeguard and dancer while in college in 1980s; dream to be a professional dancer; worked in Suzanne Sommers? show at Hilton; father?s role in guiding her career. Talks about being a Utah Jazz cheerleader; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Michael Jordan; other part-time jobs????????????????????...????16 ? 20 vi Mentions her siblings; being an overachiever; maintaining friendships, such as Joanna Kishner. Her admiration of comedian Jerry Lewis; her children?s art and other items that she surrounds herself with. Talks about how she would have pursued dancing career or comedy; thoughts about keeping her sense of humor in check as a trial judge; varied personalities of judges and importance of the judge?s oath taken. Discusses Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; she and Joanna Kishner being role models; gender bias???????????????????.....21 ? 28 SESSION 2 Speaks of family roots; her father?s Jewish background and matriarchal relationship in Judaism. Talks about being only Jewish family in Boulder City in her youth; her mother?s experiences in Boulder City and traveling to Las Vegas for Jewish education. Move to Las Vegas; attended Clark High School; active in BBYO and BBG; Faye Steinberg and Steinberg family; lived near Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church; David Straus, Heidi Sarno Straus?????????.?29 ? 31 Talks about what it meant to be Jewish when growing up. Shares about clerking for and mentorship of Judge Earle White Jr., an early African American judge and Eighth Judicial District Court judge. Describes what she calls the ?Freak Team? she was on for the District Attorney?s office (a female Jew, a female African American, an Asian male and a Hispanic male) and goal to prove her capabilities as a lawyer, proving herself to be a hardcore prosecutor in a male dominated career path???????????????????????????????...??..32 ? 35 Her thoughts about whether females have it any easier in today?s legal world; toughness women like herself have to have to be respected; story about her female mentor Judge Nancy Oesterle who she met at UNLV. Tells impact of an early jury trial for a rape case; finding her calling; deputy on Special Victims Unit????????????????.??????????36 ? 38 How she spends her days now on Nevada Court of Appeals, Department 3; differences for her between being a trial judge and reading ?cold records.? Gossip that can occur in the legal world; being appointed versus election of judges; application process???????????39 ? 42 Thoughts about raising her children in Las Vegas and changes she has observed over her years here; father getting comps; sharing Jewish traditions. Mentions Rabbi Mel Hecht, rites of passage, and Rabbi Malcolm Cohen. Important role played by Justice Michael Cherry in her career??????????????????????????????.???.42 ? 45 vii viii 1 NOTE: On January 10, 2017, interviewer Barbara Tabach sat with Judge Abbi Silver in her temporary Nevada Supreme Court office at 200 Lewis Avenue. Also present was Judge Joanna Kishner, longtime friend of Judge Silver?s. Judge Kishner?s oral history, also recorded on the same date of January 10, 2017, is included in the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project and is separately bound. Ancestral notes from Abbi Silver: My mother Elaine?s maiden name was Jacobs. She is an Ashkenazi Jew; her father came from Russia, from a city called Vinnystia. My zaide (grandfather) would have said he came from Russia, but now it is known as Ukraine. His name was David Jacooobsky?or something that sounded like that. The Ellis Island people laughed and said, ?You can?t have a name like that in the US, so now your name is ?Jacobs.? That?s how we became Jacobs. Same thing for my dad?s dad. It was Silver-something and it was chopped to Silver.? SESSION 1 ? January 10, 2017 Your grandparents were from Russia? Abbi: Yes. My two grandfathers are both from Russia and then my grandmother, my mother's mother, is from Russia. Then my dad's mother was an orphan from Ireland. So if you ever saw the movie "Philomena," it kind of freaked me out. Anyway, talk about an interesting marriage. I won't go into the whole thing, but my grandfather was Ben Silver, a Russian Jew with no education, and was a butcher and married Susan O?Connolly, an Irish red-haired blue-eyed lady, and she was Catholic, very Catholic. So my father is Frances Paul Silver. He thought he was Jewish his whole life until he went to marry 2 my mother back in the fifties. The rabbi would not marry you unless you were technically Jewish and you are what your mother is. He didn't know. He had to convert to Judaism to marry my mother. But he said to me he always thought he was Jewish. My dad always wore a mezuzah. I didn't know. I didn't know that until I was older. So that's where my grandparents...I'm second generation American. Interesting. So what else have we not covered here, ladies, in this friendship and this parallel universe that you live in? Joanna Kishner: I think we pretty much have strong ties to community, both Jewish (and) historical Vegas. If you look at it, it's kind of interesting. I already mentioned about Val Adair and Kathleen Delaney being one year above us and one year below us in high school and how Catherine Cortez Masto was our year. Abbi: Yes. We did pretty good at Clark, huh? I think it's amazing. We got some strong ladies coming out of Clark High School, yes, great high school. To what do we attribute the success of women in Nevada? Abbi: Well, we were all good friends. We are all good friends. Joanna: But in a positive sense. Abbi: Yes. Joanna: Interestingly, we were all on yearbook, too. Abbi: Yes. Yes, we were all in yearbook. Was Delaney in yearbook? Joanna: Delaney was in newspaper. I was with Delaney in newspaper. Abbi: Oh, okay. See, I forgot that, didn't I? I haven't fully gone yet, have I? Joanna: She did a little bit of yearbook, but we were mostly yearbook because Kathrine, Jenny 3 Frank?yes. You were senior editor or photo editor. Abbi: I was student life. I was the cheerleader. Does that make sense? I was the cheerleader. Yes, yes. Joanna: And she was the song leader in high school. Abbi: Oh, my gosh, I have the picture right here. It comes up on my screen saver because I gave it to my kids. I won't go into that on the record. It's cute. Just to make them nuts. Joanna: The nice thing really about this community is as much the community gets criticized for being forty-ninth in relation for education, we really have historically had very dynamic, very interesting teachers. I was mentioning Carroll Johnston. Abbi: Who? Joanna: Carroll Johnston, our first principal at Clark. I still see him at UNLV games. Abbi: Oh, that's good. Joanna: He sits one row ahead of us. The nice thing really about Clark County in general, and I say Las Vegas, but I would include obviously Henderson and everything as well, is there's always been a very strong sense of community and I think that was shown at the time we were in high school. [Looking at photographs] So those were important years to you both. Abbi: Oh, yes. Both of you have access of, not just the memories, but something physical in your office space that goes back to [those years and friendships.] That's really cool. Abbi: Yes, [Clark High School] Chargers. Joanna: But it ties all the community (together). It doesn't really matter if it went to?well, we all 4 say it does because we went to Clark. But there's a large group of people who went to Gorman, mostly on the federal bench. I think it's going back to community. We were very fortunate we had? Abbi: Well, I went to UNLV, too. And when I went to UNLV that's where I really met a lot of friends from Gorman [High School] and Valley [High School], Bonanza [High School]. So it was like a melting pot back then. Everybody went to UNLV. So you really got to meet everybody from all the different high schools. I still remain friends with all those people despite the fact I went to Clark. We are all really good friends and they went to Gorman or they went to Valley or Bonanza or Western. Some of my friends that I used to hang out with in college, which blows me away, like Trevor Scherrer, president of Mirage; Scott Sibella, president of MGM; Bill McBeath, my next-door neighborhood, president of Cosmopolitan. So we all did really pretty good between Clark and Western right there. Joanna: But it was really a sense of community. Abbi: Yes. We all knew each other. And it's nice because now we all know each other. Oddly enough, we're all in positions of power, many of us. So it's funny because you say, "Well, I know the president of that hotel; yes, president of Cosmo was my next-door neighbor growing up and I'd see him at the mailbox in a bathrobe." That's how it was. It was just totally different, so small back then. Actually Vegas was a small town back then. So you were like the next wave of pioneers, if pioneers can be layered into a history. The Jewish pioneers were family. Abbi: I think our parents definitely were pioneers for Jewish pioneers. Joanna: We had it so much easier than our parents did obviously. Abbi: Yes, sure, out here. 5 Joanna: I think so realistically. They opened up a lot of doors or ceilings or however you'd like to phrase it and then they encouraged us to walk through and break further ceilings. So we were very, very fortunate. I think it really goes back to our community. Even when you meet people at a variety of different events, the various activities that I'm strongly involved in, as soon as I say, "Well, I grew up here," usually you get a lot more support. Like, pro bono, we're trying to talk to law firms to encourage them to do pro bono, we say it's right for so many different reasons and then explain, look, I grew up here and this is part of our community, et cetera. There's always somebody at one of those law firms, "Oh, well, what high school did you go to?" If it's not the high school, then what junior high? Abbi: I still ask that. Right. Joanna: So then you get people to jump onboard in doing something for the community and I think that's positive. This is Jewish oral history, but it's positive throughout the community, but I think we also are so very fortunate in that we had that community within a smaller community that has so many different aspects now. Harmony Letizia just got elected justice of the peace. Her good friend is married to one of my third cousins or second cousins once removed or whatever it is. It's something close to that. At the same time, her grandfather is friends with my father and we also knew her parents, not as well because there's a little bit of different generational aspect. So to have that it's really l'dor vador. We have that generation that's continued on. The Mason family has done that. The Mack family has done that. The Steinbergs. Suzanne [Steinberg] Green and I went to Girls State together. I never knew her, because she went to Valley, as much. But then we met at Girls State and we realized, no, we really had grown up?she sat two rows in front of me in temple and we didn't know each other that well, but now we're still friends. Our kids were in track against each other and now we're doing certain events. 6 It's all very nice. My daughter's in BBYO. I think I mentioned...I keep going back to Ronnie Frost Tarr, Florence Frost. So it's Florence Frost's granddaughter Aiden Tarr was head of the BBYO chapter and encouraged my daughter to do it, gave her a lot of mementos of when she first started BBYO several years before Aiden is back at college. There just was an event last Thursday with my daughter. She came back from being on college vacation to be back with the BBYO group with my daughter. Then like the Sachs family, Heather Sachs was there. So you've got three generations of Sachs family. You've got three generations from ours. You've got three generations of Frosts. You had Jerry Engel's granddaughter. So you have all these multigenerational-aspect encouraging people to keep giving back to the community. Even if you leave for a while, like I did because I wanted to pursue certain academic pursuits, and then come back, it's a sense of community, it's a sense of heritage and it's a community within a community, the Jewish community. Abbi: Oh, I didn't have one. What were we talking about? The sense of community. Abbi: It's generational for me. My dad was really out here. I would say a lot of the doctors' kids?it's funny?I see whether they're Jewish or not. We just see a lot of each other. This project really?I tell people it starts out that the common denominator is Jewish ancestry, but if you just look at the interviews I have done, you really get a whole history of this city because it wasn't really segmented. Abbi: Yes, it wasn't. Joanna: When Justice Cherry's mother [Naomi Cherry] moved out, he lived in the apartments owned by my family. Abbi: My dad probably gave her a hysterectomy. I'm just kidding. I'm just throwing it out there 7 that more than likely my dad treated her. But I've talked to (indiscernible). It ties it all together. Joanna: But it does tie it all together. Then David Cherry is good friends?well, formerly was good friends with someone that I also grew up with that used to be Cantor Bergman's daughter, Alyssa Bergman. When I left Warner Bros. a few years later, curiously enough, we were at the same law firm. After I left Warner Bros, I went to DLA Piper's predecessor, and Alyssa was in one of our East Coast offices, Alyssa Bergman from Las Vegas. Came back, visited her, boom, oh, my gosh, I know your family. She's got boys younger than I do, so I didn't necessarily know her as well. Now she's at Warner Bros. although I left there and she's been there for a number of years. So it's all a small world. Abbi: I don't know all my dad's patients. I can't tell you how many people walk up to me and say, "Your dad saved my life," or, "Your dad delivered my baby." It's countless. It will just be at random places. Everybody knows my dad. So I just couldn't tell you because that's how much. He just was really big back here back then. Joanna: Then for my one last anecdote since people love Vegas history, yes, Joan Rivers used to come to Temple Beth Sholom and sit in the row right behind us with a big fur coat. Even if it was September for Rosh Hashanah, she was there in a fur coat. Abbi: You know where I saw her? I Magnin and J Magnin, oh, yes, on the Strip. I didn't see her at synagogue. I saw her with my mother shopping. I know this will shock you. It would always be Joan and her daughter, Melissa. And my mom would always say, "Look, there's Joan." Then my mom would be cool, like let's just see what they're buying. Then we'd walk over and we were playing it cool. There was a mutual respect because Joan's from Philly, by the way. Joanna: Right. But the Jewish entertainers would come to the synagogue if they were here, if 8 they were performing at High Holidays. So you had a nice kind of... [Note: Joanna Kishner leaves conversation.] Abbi: I've got a good story. My mom was at Smith's Food King off Rancho and Alta where I grew up and Jerry Lewis walked in because, of course, Jerry lives off of?I can't say where. I know where he lives. Abbi: But anyway, he lives somewhere around there. So he walks in and my mom runs up to him and says, "Oh, my God, Jerry, do you know who I am?" And Jerry looks at her like she's a nut and says, "No, lady, please tell me, who are you?" She says, "Well, I'm Abbi Silver's mother." And Jerry was like, "Oh, my God, I love Abbi." Because, of course, I was one of Jerry's attorneys?well, I was his only attorney when he got stalked and I put his stalker in prison. The stalker ultimately died in prison. But I went all over the state, to the legislature, speaking with Jerry regarding the stalking laws because some of the stalking laws that were strengthened were from Jerry Lewis who, P.S., is Jewish. But it's just a funny Smith's Food King story running into another entertainer, Jerry Lewis. It's a good story of my mom?s. That's a great story. Abbi: And then he couldn't bow down hard enough. He loved my mother after that. But he thought she was a complete nut bag when she first walked up to him. I've tried to get his oral history because I can't get enough of the Jewish entertainers who have lived here or live here. Abbi: My sisters, when we were growing up, used to go to his telethon every year at the Sahara. My sisters actually were in an elevator with Jerry, and so there's all kinds of stories. That's why I was mortified when my mom said she walked up to him. I thought, oh, my God, no, you did not. 9 "Yes, yes, I did; I just walked right up to him and told him who I was." Now, how did you get that job with him? Abbi: Well, I was the Chief of Special Victims Unit. So what happened is the FBI came in and said?and I wrote the laws that are on the books on stalking. When Jerry was being stalked, Stew Bell called me in his office and said, "The FBI is here. How are we going to get Jerry Lewis' stalker?" Because there were no federal laws that were similar to our stalking laws to stop somebody. This was in the mid-nineties. So I took the case and that's how I became very close with Jerry Lewis. I've been to his house. We went to the legislature together. We had a couple of things changed, one of which was the penalty on how long?it used to be a one to six felony aggravated stalking. Jerry testified. Even after his stalker was in prison for six years, he came out, on coming out at the prison. He expired his sentence after six years, the longest he could have spent. He came right out and started stalking him again. Oh, my, really? Abbi: Yes. So we got it changed. We were trying to get a two to twenty in Nevada State Prison for a conviction on aggravated stalking, but ultimately the legislature passed a law and it was two to fifteen and it remains on the books. But those stalking laws and stalking orders and protective orders came about largely in part because of the Jerry Lewis case that I worked with. So I was able to take that. That's one of my big cases from the DA's Office. If I called him right now...I could still call him at any time. I don't know if I could get you an interview, but I know? You could always put in a good word for me. Abbi: I know I can tell you that when I ran for judge, another really funny story is that I was at a country club having breakfast and one of my good friends came over and said, "Oh, my God, I just got a call for Jerry Lewis saying that I should vote for you for judge." I started laughing and 10 I go, "Oh, good." He had just turned fifty-five. He was an ex-cop. In fact, he ended up going to Nevada State Gaming Control Board and he was a police officer. He played volleyball with me. So he liked to think he was more my age. But I said something like, "Oh, good, all of my senior calls went out then for the robocalls." But Jerry did a taping for my robocalls for judge. I can't tell you how many people?it went to mostly seniors. My kids, they don't know who Jerry Lewis is. It's a certain age and above that know who Jerry Lewis is. Of course, he's beyond famous. He's a legend. But he really does well with the senior groups, of course. He's a legend. So when most people get a robocall, they hang up. They don't want to vote for so-and-so. They hear, "Hi, it's Jerry Lewis, I want you to vote for my good friend Abbi Silver for judge. She is the best." He's always been there for me. That means a lot. Abbi: Yes. It's pretty cool. That is. Abbi: And he gave me things, too, at his house. He gave me a pen. He gave me a CD. He gave me a bunch of little trinkets and he goes, "One day these are going to be worth something, Abbi. Keep these." That's sweet. That really is. Abbi: Yes. Kind of a neat thing he said?he begged me?I remember him crying and looking at me during his case and said, "You have to make sure you put this guy away, Abbi, you have to. I'm so scared, not for me. I'm not afraid of this guy. But I am afraid for my little daughter." His little daughter who was like in elementary school at the time. I guess that was around?I'm trying to even think. I can't remember years. But say it was mid-nineties, about '96. So how old is that little child now? I ended up putting him in prison and he died in prison. He have so happy, Jerry. 11 He was scared to death. This guy came to his house with a gun and he was a mental, crazy...He was truly the definition of insane. He was scared of him, again not so much for himself, but really for his child. I'm really glad to say I think today, the year 2017, he didn't have to worry about his little daughter all these years that I was able to put that stalker away and he's able to live comfortably without the fear of this person. So were there a series of stalker cases that moved that? Abbi: Oh, yes, that I did. I did John Ensign's. I put his stalker away. Harry Reid's stalker away. Jerry Lewis' stalker away. I put Steve Wynn's stalker away. I put our former Sheriff Moran, his stalker away. Then just countless other people's stalkers away. I did all the stalking cases at the DA's Office. All of them went to me because they were almost like a lot of little cases put into one because it's a course of conduct. So you don't just have one crime, you have like a hundred crimes. You have a hundred phone calls. You have a hundred notes left. It's just a lot of evidence. So they're really big cases as far as for evidence for prosecuting. It wasn't just one day it happened, like a robbery. You go to a 7-Eleven, sadly it happens. It was over sometimes years. Jerry Lewis' was over years. Harry Reid's and Ensign's were over years. Steve Wynn's was over maybe a two-year period. So every case is different. All of them are men on men. Isn't that weird? Yes, they weren't women. But I've had women that stalk men. There's every variation. But the high profile ones ended up being men with severe mental issues or disease that were stalking based on whatever came into their brain that didn't make any sense to most people, but they decided to stalk these public figures, which is how stalking laws came about, from "My Sister Sam" out of California with that actress. Those are really how the stalking laws came about was from that young lady. I remember that case. 12 Abbi: She was really the pioneer. It was that horrific instance of murder, of somebody who just saw a star and stalked them and killed them that all of these stalking laws came about. My cases were very similar to it makes no sense why from my public ones. A lot of my other ones were domestic, violence related, estranged relationships. But these happened to be really interesting because they were much more...In fact, in Jerry Lewis' [case] I happened to be watching "Where Are They Now Music" or "Behind the Music VH1" or something like that and I saw this stalking expert on Madonna's cases on all these high profile L.A. cases and I went to Stewart Bell and I said, "I want to get this guy." He's out of San Diego and his name is Reid Meloy. He's a psychologist there. He's high profile. All these crazy cases he's testified in. So we were able to hire him for that case, for Jerry Lewis'. He really did it more for the publicity because I had to get him down on the price of what he generally charged per hour as a stalking expert. He testified in some other, maybe it was Steve Wynn's case, too. I'd always get experts because there were mental issues and really explaining some of the stalking behaviors. But they're really interesting cases. That's how I got to know Jerry or some of these people, Steve Wynn. Well, yes, you're really protecting them. Abbi: Yes. Were there other highlights of your career? Abbi: Oh, John Bobbitt, I prosecuted him for beating up his stripper girlfriend. And Mayweather, I convicted Mayweather like three different things, Floyd Mayweather. I was the original convicter of Floyd Mayweather when I was a prosecutor. So I got a lot of the high profile cases, obviously. You didn't shy away from it. Abbi: I loved it. The higher the profile, the better. I loved being on TV. That was fun. I wish 13 some of those things were taped. I have some tapes. I have them at home and we recorded them. I think they're on VHS. They're boxed away somewhere. They're somewhere. I'm still on "Investigative Discovery," some really high murder cases. Who was just saying to me, "I was watching 'Investigative Discovery' and I heard your voice?" Is that a TV show? Abbi: Yes, "Investigative Discovery," it's on TV. It was a high profile murder case I did. I was like, "Oh, which one?" Because a couple of them have been on there of cases that I've done. That's a big deal. Or "America's Most Wanted," I used to be on quite a bit on my murder cases. Are there any low points in your career that you wish you could have won or done over again? It sounds like you were pretty successful. Abbi: Well, you can't really regret. My mom would say, "It's bashert; what is meant to be is to be and it was supposed to have happened that way." So I don't think that there's regrets. Looking back, gee, should I have done something differently? Well, yes. But I really look back at my career and I am beyond grateful and thankful. What a fun job I have, putting bad people away. My cases were always like?I was like the fun of every cocktail party?"Hey, tell me another one. What, John Bobbitt?" Or I'd get a case where somebody cut off somebody's penis or bit somebody's penis off. I had that many times. Ray Rawson, our state senator, he was my forensic odontologist in a couple of bite-off-penis cases. So I always had fun stuff to talk about because real life is stranger than fiction. You don't make light of serious, obviously, rapes or murders, but some crazy stuff did happen in between. You don't make fun of any serious victimization, but there are always light-hearted moments. Then, also, many of the horrific?I mean, we saw the worst of the worse, death penalty after death penalty case or a child murder or a baby murder. So there's nothing 14 good or funny or anything that comes out of anything. But the experience with those families, I will say this, I don't regret any of that part of my career at all because I'm still friends with so many of my victims. I just got a gift yesterday from a victim of stalking. I just took it home last night and they brought it to me for Christmas. Since 1992, she has brought me a Christmas gift every single year. I would have had it in here; I took it home last night. You made a difference, Abbi. Abbi: Well, I guess. That means so much to me. I forget that and some of the little people that I've touched. Then sometimes I've met little people who are now big people and I'll say, "Do you remember me?" And they'll say, "No." It's happened a couple o