Stephanie A. Bridgett is the first woman to serve as Shasta County District Attorney since the office was established in 1851.
District Attorney Bridgett has spent the majority of her professional career as a prosecutor in the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office. She began in the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office in 2002 and in March of 2017, she was sworn in as the 32nd District Attorney. She was elected one year later and sworn in as District Attorney in January of 2019.

During her career she has handled every type of criminal prosecution from misdemeanor cases to homicides. She is committed to ensuring victims of crime have a voice and that her office fights to make sure justice is served. She believes in offender accountability. She also individually, and as an office, engages in outreach in an effort to educate our community about crime prevention.

DA Bridgett’s top priority is equal justice for all with a focus on protecting children of Shasta County from physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Before becoming the District Attorney, she spent three years handling all child sexual and physical abuse cases, obtaining multiple life sentences for offenders that hurt children. Upon becoming the District Attorney, DA Bridgett formed the Family Violence Unit which specializes in prosecuting those offenders that harm our most vulnerable victims, including, children, elders and victims of Domestic Violence and stalking. She knows that a strong healthy family is required to decrease the potential of future criminal and addictive behavior. DA Bridgett has been a Board Member of the Children’s Legacy Center since 2017.

DA Bridgett knows that community outreach on issues critical to Shasta County not only raise awareness which helps prevent these crimes but also helps increase public trust in the District Attorney’s Office and the criminal justice system. To support this belief, she instituted several annual community awareness events including the Fraud Prevention Fair, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Food drive, Homicide Victim Memorial and Strike Out Domestic Violence Bowl-a-Thon which raises money to send kids impacted by domestic violence to CAMP HOPE, a summer camp designed to help kids heal from abuse. She has also encouraged and facilitated training in schools on issues including anti-bullying, human trafficking and cyber safety. Her office hosted several community and law enforcement trainings including issues such as sexual assault and domestic violence for first responders, child sex trafficking and the opioid crisis.

Under DA Bridgett’s leadership, her office has been able to better assist the unserved/ underserved elder population by obtaining a competitive grant that allowed the office to employee a fulltime advocate dedicated to this population. She also oversaw the preparation of her Crime Victim’s Assistance Center in the event of a mass causality including a preparedness plan for advocates to immediately respond and assist our community.
In the ever-changing landscape of criminal justice in California, DA Bridgett has found ways to continue to serve the community in creative fashions. She saw the need to focus prosecution on offenders who consume the most resources from the community, be it law enforcement or medical resources, and created the Chronic Offender Accountability Program. In collaboration with all local law enforcement agencies this program works to make sure these offenders are off the streets and unable to reoffend. In contrast to this program, DA Bridgett knows that not all offenders deserve to be incarcerated and therefore her office continues to participate in the local Addicted Offender Program which gives drug addicted felons a chance to rehabilitate and clean their record. Under her guidance the office also created a misdemeanor drug diversion which aims to divert drug addicted individuals from the criminal justice system all while they are still at the misdemeanor level in hopes of changing their life for the better before their addiction and criminality increases.

District Attorney Bridgett graduated from California State University Hayward (East Bay) in 1996 where she obtained a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing. She graduated from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 2001 with distinction in the top 15% of her class.