Cristina Perez is an American TV judge.
She was born in New York City, received two BAs at UCLA and her JD at Whittier Law School. Perez is best known for presiding over cases in the shows La Corte del Pueblo and La Corte de Familia on the Telemundo network.
In September 2006 Perez's book Living by Los Dichos: Advice from a Mother to a Daughter was published by Simon & Schuster.
She hosted the syndicated American arbitration-based reality court show, Cristina's Court, which debuted in 2006. It was filmed at KRIV, the FOX owned-and-operated station in Houston. This made Perez one of four Hispanic judges that presided over an English-language American TV judge show, along with Maria Lopez, Alex Ferrer, and Marilyn Milian. The show was Executive Produced by Peter Brennan and directed by Arthur Bergel.
Perez is the first Hispanic judge to cross over from Spanish-language to English-language television. Her ancestry is Colombian, rather than Mexican or Cuban, as had been thought by some of her viewers.
To date, the defunct series is the only court show to win more than one Emmy Award for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program: In the show's second and third season in 2008 and 2009, the court show won the first two Daytime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program" at the 34th and 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. It won an additional "Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program Award" at the 36th Annual Daytime Emmys on June 25th of 2010, despite the show being cancelled by this point. The series was cancelled after three seasons in February 2009. Original episodes would continue to be produced and the show would air through September 2009.
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