Miami
AG Commissioner-elect Nikki Fried Announces Full Transition Team
Published
7 years agoon
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. (FNN NEWS) – Recently, Agriculture Commissioner-elect Nikki Fried launched a website (nikkifriedtransition.com) announcing her full transition team as she prepares to take office as Florida’s next Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
“We have brought people together from all corners of our state and all walks of life to help build a Department that will respect the priority issues of the people and work hard to deliver results,” shared Commissioner-elect Nikki Fried. “From Democratic, Republican, and independent leaders, to leaders in Florida’s agriculture and environmental communities, public safety, energy, consumer protection, and marijuana industries—our transition team reflects the values of all Floridians. As Commissioner, I will be a voice for all of the people of Florida.”
Led by Chair Congressman Patrick Murphy and Vice Chairs, Congressman Darren Soto and Fred Guttenberg, the transition team brings a wide and diverse array of knowledge of the state’s issues and communities.
“We have put together a team with experience on the wide ranging issues the Department oversees. In the coming weeks the team will help determine the best path moving forward to build a strong Department that can deliver on Commissioner-Elect Fried’s priority issues,” stated Chair Patrick E. Murphy.
Commissioner-elect Fried’s transition team has also launched a website to ensure accessibility and transparency, and is encouraging Floridians interested in helping serve the Department to submit resumes throughout the transition process.
Transition Team Membership
Chair — Former Congressman Patrick Murphy
Murphy represented Florida’s 18th district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 until 2017. While in office he helped secure nearly $2 billion in Everglades restoration funding, introducing the SAVE Act to eliminate billions in wasteful government spending, and passing legislation to reform the national flood insurance market. Murphy also formed the bipartisan United Solutions Caucus, bringing members of both parties together to explore ways to get the nation’s fiscal house in order.
Co-Vice Chair — Congressman Darren Soto
Elected in 2016, Congressman Soto represents Florida’s 9th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, home to many of the people who grow more citrus and raise more cattle than anywhere else in the state. Serving for a decade in the Florida Legislature, he passed landmark legislation protecting families of fallen firefighters, to help victims of sexual assault, and allowing Dreamers to be admitted to the Florida Bar. He secured $25 million to build a state of the art college campus in his district, $10 million to save Florida’s springs, and $15 million for a high-tech sensors manufacturing facility. Congressman Soto is the first Floridian of Puerto Rican descent to serve in Congress.
Co-Vice Chair — Fred Guttenberg
Guttenberg is an activist against gun violence, his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018. After the massacre he has become one of the strongest voices for changes to gun laws in the nation—speaking out against President Donald Trump and Senator Marco Rubio for their ties to the NRA and support of the organization’s priorities. He and his wife have founded the Orange Ribbons organizations to support causes important to Jaime, but also causes that will deal with the way her life was tragically cut short.
State Attorney Dave Aronberg
Aronberg was elected State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit in November 2012 and re-elected without opposition in 2016. He is a former Assistant Attorney General, White House Fellow and Florida Senator where he worked on an array of issues including serving as Chair of the Everglades Restoration Committee. As State Attorney, Aronberg leads a team of 120 prosecutors and 220 professional staff in five offices throughout Palm Beach County. Under his leadership, Palm Beach County has seen a significant increase in conviction rates for felonies and misdemeanors, a decrease in juveniles direct filed into adult court, and a greatly improved working relationship with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Former Congressman Allen Boyd
From 1997 to 2011, Boyd represented the 2nd Congressional District of Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1999, he was appointed to the exclusive Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives where he worked to bring funding to the priorities of North Florida, including its military community, agriculture industry, and transportation systems. Boyd served on a number of sub-committees of the House Appropriations Committee, including Financial Services, Agriculture and Rural Development, Military Construction and Veterans, and Defense. In his role on the Committee, he oversaw the budgets of multiple agencies, including the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Pentagon, FDA, and USDA. Boyd focused much of his effort on ensuring that America maintained a strong military and continued to have a world-class agriculture production industry.
Susanne Clemons
Clemons is a fifth generation Floridian from Highlands County. She served as the State Chairperson of the USDA State Farm Service Committee from 2010 until 2016, the first woman to hold the position. Married to Pete Clemons until his death on September 16, 2018, she worked with him in cattle ranching in Okeechobee and has been a citrus grower in Highlands and Hardee Counties with her family—Clemons has decades of experience with Florida’s agriculture industry. She formerly served as secretary of the Okeechobee Cattlemen’s association, president of the Okeechobee Area Agri-Council, and a former board member of Florida Cattlemen’s Foundation.
Darin Cook
Cook is the co-founder and co-CEO of Infinite Energy, a Florida-based energy provider. Founded in 1994, the company now has more than 300 employees and provides retail energy in five states as well as wholesale energy in 22 states.The company has been recognized numerous times as one of the best companies to work for in Florida by Florida Trend, Outside and Inc. magazines. This year, Florida Trend also honored Cook as one of the state’s 500 most influential executives.
Former Senator Rick Dantzler
Dantzler is a third-generation Floridian. He was educated in Polk County public schools and attended the University of Florida, where he received his undergraduate and law degrees. At the age of 26, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives where he served eight years. In 1990, he was elected to the Florida Senate and served until he resigned to run for Governor in 1998, ultimately becoming the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor. Dantzler was appointed by President Obama in 2013 to serve as State Executive Director for the Farm Service Agency. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer of the Citrus Research and Development Foundation, Inc. Located in Lake Alfred, CRDF is an organization that funds research for the Florida citrus industry and is primarily involved in fighting citrus greening.
Mayor Jerry Demings
Sheriff Demings is a native of Orlando and was recently elected Mayor of Orange County, marking him the first African-American to hold the office. He will be the chief executive over 8,000 employees with a budget over $4 billion. He also served as Orlando’s first African-American Police Chief and was elected as the first African-American Orange County Sheriff in 2008, and re-elected in 2012 and 2016. As the chief law enforcement executive in the county, Sheriff Demings manages a budget of over $280 million and 2,600 employees. Prior to serving as Sheriff, County Mayor Richard Crotty appointed him Director of Public Safety for Orange County in October 2002. He oversaw departments including the Jail, Fire, Public Safety Communications and Emergency Operations, and had a budgetary oversight of over $320 million and about 3,200 employees.
Former Senator Denise Grimsley
A fifth-generation Floridian, Grimsley was born and raised in the Florida’s Heartland. She graduated from South Florida Community College, Polk Community College and Warner Southern College with degrees in Nursing and Organizational Management, later earning an MBA from the University of Miami. In 2013, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters for her work in Health Policy by Nova Southeastern University. She served in the Florida House for 8 years, and was the first female chair of the influential House Appropriations Committee. She also ran for and was elected to the Florida Senate where she served for six years. During her legislative career she served all 14 years on the Agriculture committee and three years as Chairman.
Chris Hand
Hand is a Jacksonville-based attorney with a long record of public service. From 1996 to 2000, he served as speechwriter and press secretary for former Florida Governor and then-U.S. Senator Bob Graham. Graham and Hand subsequently co-authored America, the Owner’s Manual: You Can Fight City Hall – and Win, a guide to effective citizenship. From 2011 to 2015, he was Chief of Staff at the City of Jacksonville. In that role, Hand coordinated Mayor Alvin Brown’s Cabinet of direct reports and managed the mayor’s office team, with oversight for policy, advocacy and communications. At the City of Jacksonville, he was actively involved with mayoral transitions in 2011 and 2015. In his legal practice, Hand helps clients anticipate and address strategic challenges and opportunities at every level of government.
Former Florida House Speaker Jon Mills
Mills is Dean Emeritus, Professor of Law, and Director of Center for Governmental Responsibility at UF’s Levin College of Law. He is Counsel to Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Mills is a former Dean of the UF Levin College of Law from 1999-2003, a former Speaker of the Florida House, and served as member of the 1997-1998 Florida Constitution Revision Commission (as Chair of Style and Drafting Committee and was selected Most Valuable Member). He helped draft the Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative in 2014, the Florida Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative in 2016, and the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative in 2018, and argued them in the Florida Supreme Court.
Sam Poole
Poole has extensive experience in planning and zoning in the development and redevelopment of Florida’s cities. He has over 25 years of experience advising clients on conventional and new urbanism land development issues in Florida. Poole has particular skills dealing with environmental constraints affecting land development. As Executive Director of the South Florida Water Management District from 1994 to 1999, he directed a staff of 1,700 with annual budgets of $500 million to restore the Everglades and protect South Florida’s water supply and flood mitigation system and gained key insights into the effect of water issues on development.
Scheril Murray Powell, Esquire
Powell is an Agricultural and Cannabis Attorney based in Fort Lauderdale. She is a member of the University of Florida Hemp Pilot Program Advisory Board and serves on the ASTM International Standards Committees for Cannabis, Textiles, Pesticides, and Biomass. Powell also serves as General Counsel for the Non-Profit Organization, Minorities 4 Medical Marijuana, General Counsel for Patience with Patients, Director of Strategy for the Pilgram Group LLC, and Chief Brand Officer of R and R Naturals. She is also president and founder of the consulting firm Green Sustainable Strong, LLC.
Former Representative Dean Saunders
Saunders is an 8th-generation Floridian who served in the Florida House, where he authored groundbreaking legislation for the Bright Futures Scholarship program and spearheaded significant Florida land conservation initiatives. Prior to his work in the state legislature, Dean served U.S. Senator, and then Florida Governor, Lawton Chiles in several executive roles both in Washington and Tallahassee. He earned his BSA from the University of Florida in Fruit Crops, Food and Resource Economics. Dean is the founder and owner of Coldwell Banker Commercial Saunders Real Estate, an industry-leading firm in Lakeland, Florida recognized by The Land Report magazine as one of “America’s Best Brokerages.”
Transition Team General Counsel
Benedict Kuehne — General Counsel
Kuehne is Board Certified as a trial and appellate lawyer with a national practice. While best known for his representations as a white collar defense lawyer, he is one of the premier election law specialists in Florida, having represented Vice President Gore in the 2000 recount trial and the appeals to the Florida Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court, as well as Nikki Fried’s campaign for Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services in the recent recount. In 2012, Kuehne obtained the 5th highest verdict in the nation, $155 million, for his representation of an educator who sued as a whistle blower for her wrongful termination. An Ironman athlete, he is the IronLawyer.
Transition Team Staff
Eric Johnson — Executive Director
Johnson has over 30 years of political and government experience in Washington, DC and Florida at the local, state, and federal levels. Having served as Chief of Staff to former Congressman Robert Wexler and former Congressman Patrick Murphy, he worked on issues including foreign affairs, the judiciary, intellectual property, securing funding for Everglades restoration and more. Johnson serves as a political advisor and media consultant for clients seeking offices at all levels of government and draws from a wealth of political experience, having also served as a top advisor to the Florida Chairman of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, Political Director of the Florida Democratic Party, and Chief of Staff to former Florida State Senator Tom Rossin.
Shelby Scarpa — Deputy Executive Director
Scarpa was the Campaign Manager for Commissioner-elect Fried’s successful run for Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services. For over a decade, she has been a senior campaign and fundraising consultant to Congressional, statewide, state, and local democratic candidates across the country. Her Florida clients have included Congressman Patrick Murphy, State Attorney and former State Senator Dave Aronberg, and Congressman Ron Klein. Additionally, she has provided development consulting to international NGOs based in Washington, DC. Scarpa previously served as the Public Affairs Director of Field Operations for Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast and as a program officer at the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties.
Deborah Tannenbaum — Senior Advisor
Tannenbaum serves as the Executive Director for the Florida Peanut Federation (FPF), a trade association that promotes, educates and markets the benefits of Florida peanuts to the public. Founded in 2017, FPF has engaged the public in over 90 peanut education events reaching over 300,000 in FL. Additionally, FPF has donated tens of thousands of jars of peanut butter to Floridians facing hunger challenges, from school backpack programs to recent hurricane disaster relief efforts. Tannenbaum has decades of experience in strategic development for trade associations, non-profit organizations, issue advocacy, and political campaigns in Florida and nationally. Prior to FPF, Tannenbaum served as Chief of Staff for Cannae Policy Group, a government affairs firm in Washington, DC, where she managed day to day operations client relations and developed strategic legislative plans and priorities. Tannenbaum is a native of Lake City, FL and is graduate of FSU and George Washington University.
Jordan Anderson —Director of Operations
Anderson is a seventh generation Floridian from Tallahassee. Recently, he served as the Deputy Field Director for For Our Future, a progressive Super PAC focused on voter outreach and engagement. Anderson also led advocacy campaigns for progressive issues during the 2017 and 2018 legislative sessions and helped oversee the recent statewide recount process in coordination with the Florida Democratic Party in his role as an attorney. He has served as Vice President, North Florida Regional Director, and Political Director for the Florida Young Democrats. Prior to joining For Our Future, Anderson was a Regional Field Director on former Congresswoman Gwen Graham’s 2014 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. Jordan is a member of the Florida Justice Association and the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division, having graduated from Florida State University’s College of Law in 2016.
Max Flugrath — Communications Director
Flugrath worked as Communications Director for Nikki Fried for Commissioner of Agriculture and Philip Levine for Governor during the 2018 election cycle. He also served as Communications Director for Leader Janet Cruz in the Florida House, where he worked directly with House Democrats on messaging strategies encompassing a wide variety of policy issues. Prior to his time with the House Democratic Caucus, Max was part of former State Senator Rod Smith’s campaign for Florida senate district 8.
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Crime
Lawyer’s Group Text Causes 2nd Florida Murder Case Mistrial
Published
4 years agoon
August 18, 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A prosecutor in a murder case complained about a judge’s ruling in a group text message that included the judge, resulting in a second mistrial for a man charged with killing his girlfriend’s young son. Now the defense wants the case dismissed altogether.
Broward County Judge Peter Holden refused to allow a 911 call as evidence against Corey Gorden, who is accused of killing the 3-year-old in 2015 and returning him in his car seat to his mother as if nothing had happened.
Assistant State Attorney Katya Palmiotto then sent a text complaining about the ruling to a group of current and former homicide prosecutors, the South Florida SunSentinel reported.
“Holden just sustained their objection and wouldn’t let us put the 911 call in as hearsay,” she wrote.
As a former homicide prosecutor who was appointed to the bench in 2018, the judge remained in the group chat. And lawyers are prohibited in criminal cases from talking with the judge if the defendant’s lawyers are not present.
Defense lawyer Michael Gottlieb filed for mistrial on Wednesday, saying in a summary that the 15-year veteran prosecutor had been overheard saying she messed up “real bad.”
“The judge was visibly upset and appeared angry,” Gottlieb wrote.
Holden grilled the prosecutor about the text message before declaring a mistrial.
In May, another judge declared a mistrial when prosecutors asked a witness about Gorden’s refusal to give a statement. Criminal trial jurors are not permitted to consider the defendants silence as proof of guilt.
Holden has not set a hearing on Gottlieb’s motion to dismiss the case.
Crimes and Courts
School shooter’s brain exams to be subject of court hearing
Published
4 years agoon
August 15, 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A defense mental health expert in the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz can pinpoint when he realized the 23-year-old mass murderer still has “irrational thoughts” — the two were making small talk when Cruz began describing plans for an eventual life outside prison.
Wesley Center, a Texas counselor, said that happened last year at the Broward County jail as he fitted Cruz’s scalp with probes for a scan to map his brain. The defense at hearings this week will try to convince Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer that Center and other experts should be allowed to testify at Cruz’s ongoing trial about what their tests showed, something the prosecution wants barred.
“He had some sort of epiphany while he was in (jail) that would focus his thoughts on being able to help people,” transcripts show Center told prosecutors during a pretrial interview this year. “His life’s purpose was to be helping others.”
Cruz, of course, will never be free. Since his arrest about an hour after he murdered 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, there has never been any doubt his remaining years would be behind bars, sentenced to death or life without parole. Surveillance video shows him mowing down his victims with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and he confessed, eventually pleading guilty in October.
Prosecutors made their argument for death to the seven-man, five-woman jury and 10 alternates over three weeks, resting their case Aug. 4 after the panel toured the still-bloodstained, bullet-pocked classroom building where the massacre happened.
The jurors also watched graphic surveillance videos; saw gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos; received emotional testimony from teachers and students who witnessed others die; and heard from tearful and angry parents, spouses and other family members about the victims and how their loved one’s death impacted their lives. They watched video of the former Stoneman Douglas student calmly ordering an Icee minutes after the shooting and, nine months later, attacking a jail guard.
Soon, it will be Cruz’s attorneys arguing why he should be spared, hoping to convince at least one juror their mitigating factors outweigh the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances — a death sentence must be unanimous.
But first, the trial took last week off to accommodate some jurors’ requests to deal with personal matters. The jury will also be absent this week as the sides argue before Scherer, who will decide whether brain scans, tests and other evidence the defense wants to present starting Aug. 22 is scientifically valid or junk, as the prosecution contends.
Center’s test and its findings will be subject to contentious debate. Called a “quantitative electroencephalogram” or “qEEG,” its backers say it provides useful support to such diagnoses as fetal alcohol syndrome, which Cruz’s attorneys contend created his lifelong mental and emotional problems.
EEGs have been common in medicine for a century, measuring brainwaves to help doctors diagnose epilepsy and other brain ailments. But the qEEG analysis, which has been around since the 1970s, goes a step farther — a patient’s EEG results are compared to a database of brainwaves taken from normal or “neurotypical” people. While qEEG findings cannot be used to make a diagnosis, they can support findings based on the patient’s history, examination, behavior and other tests, supporters contend.
A “qEEG can confirm what you already know, but you can’t create new knowledge,” Center told prosecutors in his interview.
Dr. Charles Epstein, an Emory University neurology professor, reviewed Center’s findings for the prosecution. In a written statement to Scherer, he said EEGs using only external scalp probes like the one given Cruz are imprecise, making Center’s qEEG results worthless.
“Garbage in, garbage out,” he wrote.
Florida judges have given mixed rulings about allowing qEEGs since 2010, when the test helped a Miami-area man escape a death sentence for fatally stabbing his wife and severely wounding her mentally disabled 11-year-old daughter. Some judges have since allowed their admission, while others barred them. Scherer, who is overseeing her first death penalty trial, has never had a case where the defense tried to present a qEEG report.
Even if Scherer bars the test, lead defense attorney Melisa McNeill and her team still have evidence that Cruz’s brain likely suffered damage in the womb, including statements by his late birth mother that she abused alcohol and cocaine during pregnancy.
They also have reports giving circumstantial evidence of his mental illness. Cruz got kicked out of preschool for hurting other children. During his years in public school, he spent significant time at a center for students with emotional issues. He also received years of mental health treatment.
Then there are his life circumstances. Cruz’s adoptive father died in front of him when he was 5; he was bullied by his younger brother and his brother’s friends; he was allegedly abused sexually by a “trusted peer;” he cut himself and abused animals; and his adoptive mother died less than four months before the shooting.
His youth will also be an issue — he was 19 when the shooting happened.
Attorneys not involved in the case say if Scherer wants to avoid having a possible death sentence overturned on appeal, she should give the defense wide latitude on what it presents so jurors can fully assess his life and mental health.
“If it’s a close call, I think she is going to bend to the defense — and the prosecution is not going to be happy,” said David S. Weinstein, a Miami criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor.
Miami
Lawmaker, Florida school at odds on alleged bathroom attack
Published
4 years agoon
August 14, 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Police in Florida say they will investigate a lawmaker’s allegation that a transgender student may have sexually assaulted a female student in a middle school bathroom over the summer — a rumored attack that school district officials say never occurred and that investigators say they received no reports about.
After reading Republican State Rep. Randy Fine’s social media posts about the alleged assault on Thursday, police in the eastern coast city of Melbourne, just south of Cape Canaveral, assigned two detectives to investigate the allegations, though they said they had received no previous word of an attack.
Fine told The Associated Press on Friday that some parents approached him, saying a teacher at the school told them about the incident but that the teacher was “afraid to go public because of fear of retaliation by the school district.”
Brevard Public Schools spokesperson Russell Bruhn disputed Fine’s allegations. “There was no attack. No victim, no witness, no parents coming forward, nothing,” he told the AP. “Rep. Fine owes our staff at Johnson Middle School an apology for making this baseless allegation.”
Fine, a Republican lawmaker known for fiery floor speeches marked by indignation, drew a national spotlight earlier this year when he sponsored a bill to dissolve the private government Walt Disney World controls on its property in Florida as punishment for the company’s opposition to a new law barring gender identity instruction in early grades that critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”
The reports began circulating on Wednesday, and Florida Today reported Thursday that Fine had sent a letter to Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz seeking an investigation into reports that a transgender student — granted access to the girl’s bathroom through the district’s open bathrooms policy — had assaulted a female student over the summer.
Melbourne police spokesperson Shaun Hill said the department received no reports of a sexual assault at the school over the summer. But he said Friday that the department, after seeing Fine’s social media posts, contacted him to ask for more information about the alleged incident, and assigned two detectives to the case. Hill said the investigation has just started and there is no further information available.
“I would assume that Rep. Fine would be eager to talk to the police himself and will also be eager to provide police with access to the concerned parents who have gone to him with this false information,” said Bruhn, the school district spokesperson.
In the letter to the education commissioner, Fine said parents have been “stonewalled” in their inquiries to the school district, including requests for public records.
Students attending summer school at Johnson were escorted to restrooms by adults during summer school because of ongoing construction, Bruhn told Florida Today, which first reported the story. He said students from other district schools were also attending classes there and were unfamiliar with the campus layout.
