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Urge to help children leads DeSiato to DA’s office

By: Dan Shaw, [email protected]//June 20, 2019//

Urge to help children leads DeSiato to DA’s office

By: Dan Shaw, [email protected]//June 20, 2019//

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Abbey DeSiato - Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office
Abbey DeSiato –
Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office

Abbey DeSiato always wanted to use the law to help protect those who can least protect themselves.

Now she finds herself doing just that as an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County’s Sensitive Crimes Unit. But although DeSiato knew early on what her ultimate goal was, her path forward has not always been in a straight line.

A native of Canton, Ohio, DeSiato first moved to the East Coast and earned an undergraduate degree in journalism from Boston University before attending law school at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York. She then moved to New York City and worked for four years for the New York City Law Department, prosecuting juvenile delinquency offenses.

Her move to Milwaukee came when her husband, a native of the Philadelphia area and graduate of Marquette University Law School, got a job in Milwaukee. DeSiato joined the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office at the end of 2011.

Since then, she has worked on everything from sexual assault to child pornography and child neglect. One of her areas of expertise now is combatting sex trafficking, a crime for which Milwaukee has an unfortunate reputation for being a hub.

DeSiato said there has been a thread running throughout her legal work.

“Originally when I went to law school I wanted to work at the intersection of children and the law and, specifically, represent children directly,” she said. “In my last year of law school, I interned in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office working on criminal prosecutions of child abuse offenses.”

In nominating DeSiato for a Women in the Law award, fellow Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Erin Karshen noted her success prosecuting two cases involving unspeakable crimes.

In one, the defendant, a man charged with seven counts related to sex trafficking of children, tried in various ways to derail his trail, including faking a medical emergency.

“ADA DeSiato’s patience combined with her expertise in presenting child testimony led to guilty verdicts from the jury, all despite the defendant’s antics,” Karshen wrote in her nomination.

As for women’s status in the legal profession, DeSiato has seen plenty of progress in the decade that she has been practicing law, but there’s still room for improvement.

“Sometimes trials still feel like an old boys’ club,” she said. “It can be difficult to be taken seriously, and sometimes is an uphill battle. If a woman gets passionate about something, it’s because she’s being overly emotional. When it’s a man who does it, it’s simply because he’s passionate.”

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