Diana started her career 30 years ago in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, after receiving her BA with honors and Phi Beta Kappa and her law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fluent in Spanish, Diana spent 25 years as a prosecutor focusing on street crime, domestic violence, complex frauds, and corruption cases, ultimately creating and leading the nation’s first Construction Fraud Task Force. She won groundbreaking convictions against companies and individuals for defrauding 9/11 charities, corruption, domestic violence, wage theft, and deadly work conditions. Working side-by-side with community-based groups, unions, worker centers, and government agencies, Diana created an innovative prosecution model heavily rooted in broad based community participation. She also taught trial advocacy for over two decades to lawyers in the DA’s Office and has lectured investigators and lawyers from around the world on topics ranging from inter-agency cooperation to prosecuting fraud, racketeering and workplace homicide. 

As an ADA, Diana held powerful interests accountable by prosecuting landmark cases on behalf of workers and taxpayers. She secured justice for the family of a 22 year-old construction worker, Carlos Moncayo, who was buried alive at work. Using the existing criminal law, Diana obtained convictions against the corporations and site supervisors, who had been repeatedly warned of hazardous conditions, for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide related to Moncayo’s death. Diana also secured a record breaking wage theft conviction working alongside IronWorkers Local 361 to secure $6 million in stolen wages and back-pay from AGL Industries Not only did Diana prosecute these cases, she authored two bills—Wage Theft and Carlos’ Law—that later became New York State Laws.

 

These successes led to her run for Manhattan District Attorney in 2021, with the support of 20 labor unions.The conclusion of Diana’s campaign coincided with a sea of change in collegiate athletics, namely the broad legalization of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) compensation. Recognizing the parallels between immigrant construction workers and these young athletes, namely that both groups were traditionally overlooked and yet were the engines of multi-billion-dollar industries, she transitioned her practice to collegiate athletics as both an attorney and a consultant. She is one of a handful of lawyers nationwide that has successfully sued the NCAA, on behalf of a Division One basketball player at Manhattan College, and won a preliminary injunction that granted him immediate eligibility. 

Born in Manhattan, Diana is a long-time resident of Kips Bay where she lives with her husband and two children.

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