New York Daily News

Star prosecutor on DA team

- Larry McShane

IN THE end, Joan Illuzzi was where she belonged: Inside a Manhattan courtroom as a jury convicted Etan Patz’s killer.

“I . . . just thank God that this jury has come to a just and truthful verdict for the Patz family,” Illuzzi said Tuesday after Pedro Hernandez was found guilty of kidnapping and murder.

The veteran prosecutor could have missed the verdict.

Illuzzi left the Manhattan district attorney’s office after Hernandez’s 2015 ended with a hung jury. She then mounted an unsuccessf­ul run for Staten Island district attorney against former Rep. Michael McMahon.

After her loss, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. rehired Illuzzi as a special counsel to join the Hernandez retrial team.

“Joan is the prosecutor’s prosecutor,” Vance said at the time. “She brings nearly three decades of prosecutor­ial experience to this office.”

She also brought hope for Etan’s father, Stan, who was losing faith that his son’s killer would ever face justice.

Illuzzi convinced him otherwise.

“It was Joan Illuzzi who brought it home to me a number of years ago, and I was convinced after her presentati­on,” Stan Patz said following the verdicts. “That was the kind of informatio­n, the kind of thing I needed. I needed to know what happened to my son.”

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