Needelman wants trial moved out of Brevard | FLORIDA TODAY | floridatoday.com
Former Brevard County Clerk of Courts Mitch Needelman wants his upcoming criminal trial moved to Orange County or another venue outside Brevard, citing pretrial publicity and the influence of his chief political rival.
via Needelman wants trial moved out of Brevard | FLORIDA TODAY | floridatoday.com.
It’s no wonder that Needelman wants to be prosecuted by the 9th judicial circuit instead of the 18th.
Historically, Florida’s 9th judicial circuit and 18th judicial circuit trade cases like baseball cards for all-too-predicable outcomes, and with R.J. Larizza’s election, the 7th judicial circuit has joined the game, too.
The 18th to 9th transfer of Gary Bennett’s proseution was ridiculously tainted: The same charlatan dog handler used to frame Gary in the 18th – John Preston – had been used in the 9th, with FBI participation, to convict Linroy Bottoson, who was subsequently wrongly executed in 2002 … nearly 20 years after Preston had been determined a fraud in Dale Sutton’s federal case. Jeff Ashton – of Casey Anthony notority – led Gary’s prosecution in the 9th. Ashton tied Gary’s case to also-framed Tommy Zeigler’s by leveling the same lurid lie at Gary that he had at Tommy years earlier, although the lie undermined the state’s fabricated case against Gary … fabricated as in Preston being used against Gary over a year after he’d been found a fraud, federally, within the knowledge of Central Florida officers, public defenders, prosecutors and the media, per the January 30, 1984 Sentinel article, “Legal foes differ on value of dog’s nose.”
The 9th to 18th transfer of Michael Emmons prosecution was tainted, too. Emmons had performed independent contractual IT work for a 18th circuit county clerks office. Emmons – among other things – had leaked information on the Casey Anthony trial. His wrist was predictably slapped, despite the seriousness of his IT crimes.
The 18th to 7th transfer of Juan Ramos’ exoneration compensation claim was inexcusable if Ramos still lives in Miami, as the last news of him I could find portrayed. One of our high-and-mighty reasons for chucking British rule was being inordinately inconvenienced in matters of law, by unfairly distant trials. (Look it up.) Ramos’ conviction was upset in 1987 via an 18th circuit judge – Gilbert Goshorn – skill-testing Preston and finding he simply could not track scent. Goshorn concluded, formally, that Preston had been fed information by police or prosecutors. As two 18th circuit Preston frame-up victims exonerated in this century have already received compsenation, the 7th’s stalling Ramos’ claim is cruel and unusual, as well as predictable … it’s crucial to keep Ramos out of the news to keep Gary Bennett’s frame-up intact.
As it’s impossible for R. J. Larizza to know less about Preston frame-ups than I do, it was unwise of him to accept yet another 18th to 7th/Preston matter, the reinvestigation of James Dvorak’s Canova Beach bludgeoning death, for which William Dillon served 27+ years before DNA cleared him in 2008 (he’s one of the compensated exonerees, Wilton Dedge is the other). The investigation, despite published claims of a definitive DNA “hit” – again, predictably – went nowhere. Despite my pleas, Pauline Scandale’s Canova Beach bludgeoning homicide was not reinvestigated simultaneously, although the widowed, retired kindergarten teacher surely deserves just as much attention as James Dvorak. Canova Beach is tiny, and both bludgeoning homicides occurred in the 1980’s.
This is all Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s problem, and she knew it before she was elected. While campaigning for office, she promised – on national television – to investigate all cases involving John Preston. She doesn’t answer emails that request that she honor her pledge.
And Bondi not answering her emails is predictable: She knows she can count on Florida Today, the Orlando Sentinel, the AP, Scripps and the rest of the mainstream media spin her into being competent and caring and protective of Floridians, although she’s nothing of the kind.
A big tip-off is the linked Florida Today article, which portrays current Brevard County Clerk of Courts Scott Ellis as holding some kind of mysterious sway over Brevard courts.
That Ellis’ alleged powers are utter nonsense is made clear by the initial judicial assignment … Judge W. David Dugan presided over Gary Bennett and William Dillon’s appeals, and allowed all manner of misconduct, and even ignored clear indication of evidence tampering in both cases, as the same DNA lab was used for both cases – Orchid Cellmark in Dallas County, Texas.
Gary is facing a 30th anniversary of his frame-up. Tommy’s been on death row for 37th years. All the while, the actual killers remained free. Their exoneration compensation will total $3.7M, and it shouldn’t come out of my pocket or yours; it should come out of Ashton and his crony’s pockets … long before Ashton is able to predictably slap Mitch Needelman’s wrist in another 18th to 9th transfer.
Lawson Lamar of the 9th accepted Gary’s transfer from Norm Wolfinger of the 18th conditionally; Lamar agreed to fight having Gary’s evidence DNA-tested. Lamar and Wolfinger’s respective successors, Jeff Ashton and Phil Archer, are cut from the same filthy cloth. Which brings us back to Pam Bondi standing for prosecutorial misconduct instead of for the people that are at a minimum defrauded endangered by that misconduct, and at a maximum wrongly executed for it.
Like FL A.G. Bondi, Governor Rick Scott is up-to-speed on conviction corruption and peripheral corruption … he signs the transfers that keeps the corruption flourishing.
Like far too many other governors, Scott just keeps on signing death warrants to appear tough on crime, all the while facilitating prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.
Darius Kimbrough will be executed in just a few minutes. And Scott’s office is in receipt of my objections, and likely others’ objections.
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