She was appointed a New York City Criminal Court judge by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and then a judge of the New York Court of Claims by Governor George Pataki. As a Court of Claims judge, she served as an Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, sitting in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She was the first Hispanic woman to serve as a state judge in New York. She was an assistant district attorney of the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor in the Bronx County District Attorney's Office from 1981 to 1987 and then in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1987 to 1995. She then became a judge on the New York City Criminal Court from 1995 to 1997, and an Acting Justice on the Court of Claims in Kings County from 1997 to 1998, before serving in the same position in Manhattan from 1998 to 2002.
In 2002, Irizarry resigned from her judgeship to become the Republican nominee for Attorney General of New York, challenging Democratic incumbent Eliot Spitzer. She was the first Latina to seek statewide office in New York State. Irizarry lost the race by a 66%-30% margin, but ran a strong race in upstate New York. After the election, she entered private practice with the firm of Hoguet, Newman & Regal in Manhattan.
Federal judicial service
In 2003, Irizarry was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Although the American Bar Association determined her to be "not qualified," she was confirmed by the Senate on June 24, 2004 and received her commission on July 8, 2004, thereby becoming the first Hispanic judge in the Eastern District. She became Chief Judge of the Eastern District on April 15, 2016. Her judicial seat is in Brooklyn. She assumed senior status on January 26, 2020
Notable cases
On December 15, 2010, Judge Irizarry sentenced Islamist militant and engineer Abdul Kadir, 58, of Guyana, to life in prison after the jury found him and co-defendant Russel Defreitas, a U.S. citizen born in Guyana, guilty of planning to blow up New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport by exploding fuel tanks and pipelines underneath it. She sentenced Defreitas to life in prison on February 17, 2011. One month previously, she had sentenced Abdel Nur, a co-defendant who pleaded guilty, to 15 years, and the following year, Kareem Ibrahim, who was tried separately, was also found guilty and given a life sentence by Judge Irizarry.
