Fort Lauderdale Criminal Attorney Blog

February 14, 2017

Teens Arrested in South Florida Shopping Center Robbery/ Assaults

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

One boy is a ninth-grader who is just 15. Another is a 16-year-old girl and another just turned 18. All three are facing charge that could put them behind bars for many years.

Detectives say the teens are involved in nearly a dozen cases of alleged assault, battery, carjacking and robbery in Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Dania Beach and Aventura. According to The Sun-Sentinel, the teens robbed at least five women at their homes or at local shopping centers. Authorities say the women were robbed, punched and in some instances pepper-sprayed while the teens snatched what they could from the alleged victims. Most occurred in supermarket parking lots, though there was one case outside of a restaurant and another in a woman’s driveway. In one case, a woman’s vehicle was reportedly stolen from her property just hours after she was attacked at a nearby grocery store.

At a detention hearing, a Broward judge denied the youngest defendant the chance to be confined at home. He will instead be housed at a juvenile facility until prosecutors decide whether to direct file on a felony charge of robbery. The 18-year-old defendant faces 10 felony charges so far (including carjacking, robbery by sudden snatching and aggravated battery on an elderly person, who was 73). The 16-year-old is also facing numerous charges. Continue reading

February 10, 2017

State Seeks Reversal of Stand Your Ground Immunity for Deputy

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

Prosecutors allege a Broward sheriff’s deputy was not entitled to legal immunity under the so-called “stand your ground” law. The state is appealing the ruling last year by Broward Circuit Judge Michael Usan, who ruled the 38-year-old deputy should have immunity from prosecution. The deputy, Peter Peraza, is the first on-duty officer of the law to be charged with a firearm death of a civilian in in Florida in 37 years. As The Sun-Sentinel reported, the deputy faced charges of manslaughter for the 2013 fatal shooting.

The incident happened in Oakland Park, where the 33-year-old decedent was walking through an apartment complex past a pool with children and parents present. He reportedly had a realistic-looking rifle on his back and reportedly ignored Peraza’s orders to set it down. The deputy told the judge he had no choice but to fire his service weapon after decedent turned toward him and his fellow law enforcement officers and appeared to raise it as if to fire. It was later determined that weapon was an air rifle, and it wasn’t loaded. However, members of decedent’s family offered up evidence that he was wearing headphones at the time of the shooting, contrary to testimony given by deputies who insisted there was nothing that obviously indicated to them that he could not hear what they were saying when they ordered him to lay down the weapon.

Intention to appeal was first filed by prosecutors shortly after the judge’s ruling last year, but it was only formally filed late last month. Prosecutors argue that stand your ground immunity can’t be extended to police or other law enforcement officers who are in the midst of making an arrest. Stand your ground allows the use of fatal force to stop a threat that is reasonably deemed imminent. Continue reading

February 7, 2017

Broward Defense Lawyers Can Help With Having Crime Records Sealed, Expunged

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

Recently, the Broward state attorney’s office held a workshop for adults interested in having a criminal charge sealed or expunged from their record.

Those who have a criminal conviction on their permanent record probably know that it can hinder one from landing a job, getting a decent apartment to rent, obtaining child custody or earning certain types of special licenses or certifications. It can touch nearly every facet of everyday life. This is true even though a person may have been cleared of the criminal allegation or they have successfully completed probation or a diversion program or otherwise paid their debt to society. Even having done all this, a person can still find that the arrest record haunts them. This is why expunging or sealing one’s criminal record can be so important to one’s future.

This is the fifth time the local state attorney’s office has held this workshop, which involves helping people prepare the sealing or expunging application that is required by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to initiate the process, which can be initiated for both adults and juveniles, though the process can vary. Although there are certainly some who benefit from these free workshops, there is good reason why most people who initiate the process do so with the help of an experienced criminal defense lawyer. Continue reading

February 1, 2017

Court Orders Remedy of Thousands of Flawed Drug Convictions

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

In criminal cases, scientific evidence is given a significant amount of weight, whether that is DNA evidence or proof of that a certain substance is in fact illegal. However, as we’ve seen in a number of instances across the country in recent years, that evidence is not infallible. One of the most infamous cases of this was that of a chemist in Massachusetts, who reportedly admitted to manipulating drug test results in order to give prosecutors a leg up. She is believed to have been involved in more than 20,000 drug cases in the course of her 8.5 years working with the state crime lab (from which she was later fired).

Now, the question is what to do about all those potentially tainted convictions, many of which were secured using the test results of that chemist. Recently, more than 4.5 years after the chemist confessed, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has called on prosecutors to reverse potentially thousands of those.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, prosecutors have been reluctant throughout this process to reverse convictions where the chemist’s work played a role. In one instance, prosecutors argued they didn’t have any obligation to let those convicted know of their possible innocence in the court’s eyes. Incredibly, one prosecutor even opined that many of the defendants were probably too poor or else too tied up with issues that were more pressing, such as addiction or mental illness, to have any real desire to address these cases. But the state’s highest court isn’t buying that. Continue reading

January 29, 2017

Drug Suspect Charged With Murder After Passengers Die Trying to Escape

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

The 30-year-old suspect was likely going to be facing drug trafficking charges. He didn’t want to confront that possibility. Instead, he fled from police in an attempt to escape. But he lost control of the car. The vehicle overturned and careened into a nearby canal and started to sink. Defendant swam out through a window, but police caught him within minutes.

What the suspect didn’t inform police of until it was too late was that there were two other people still trapped in that submerged car. It wasn’t until officers asked that he offered up the information.

Now the Sunrise man is facing two second-degree murder charges in those deaths. He is being held without bond, and faces up to life in prison if convicted. Continue reading

January 25, 2017

Man Arrested in Broward for Written Threats to Trump

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

This past election season was a contentious one and emotions were high. No matter who won, it was bound to rile some. While the U.S. Constitution extends a fair amount of latitude to private citizens who use their First Amendment freedom of expression to voice disdain for leadership, there is a line that can be crossed that could result in criminal charges.

That’s what a Broward County man recently discovered when he was arrested by federal authorities for making threats against then-President-Elect Donald Trump.

The Sun-Sentinel reports the 59-year-old suspect, who lives in Pembroke Pines, is alleged to have made threats to either harm or kill Trump. He was arrested at his home after local law enforcement authorities notified the U.S. Secret Service, who have the duty of protecting Trump. Continue reading

January 22, 2017

Florida Leads Nation in Charging Children as Adults

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

South Florida prosecutors recently announced they would be charging a Fort Lauderdale teen as an adult for his alleged role in an attempted robbery that resulted in the fatal shooting of a construction worker at a convenience store. The state attorney’s office said the 17-year-old suspect reportedly shot the 33-year-old construction worker, who had just exchanged a $100 bill for several $20 bills. The two reportedly started “tussling” when the suspect held the worker at gunpoint, and the suspect in turn fired at least three shots, killing the worker, police said.

When teens are charged as adults, it’s via a process known as “direct file,” spelled out in F.S. 985.557. The statute allows that any child who is 14 or 15 at the time of an alleged offense may be subject to a “discretionary direct file” (the discretion being that of the state attorney’s office) for certain felony offenses, including (but not limited to) murder, sexual battery, kidnapping, stalking, child abuse, aggravated battery or armed burglary. A child who is 16 or 17 may be subject to a mandatory direct file if they have previously been adjudicated delinquent for one of these felonies or if the current offense is a “forcible felony” or if the the offense involved possession of a firearm/ destructive device and/ or involved discharge of that weapon.

So while some of these matters may be out of prosecutors’ hands via statute, the fact remains that Florida transfers more children out of the juvenile justice system and into adult court than any other state. The Human Rights Watch reported on this fact in a 2014 investigation. Ninety-eight percent of children who end up in the adult court system do so as a result of the direct file statute, which does not require prosecutors to get any input from a judge. Continue reading

January 18, 2017

The War on Drugs and Your Driver’s License

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

In the 1980s and into the 1990s, many states adopted severe drug sentencing policies that resulted in packed prisons across the nation. Corrections costs were driven to near bankruptcy and communities, families and individuals’ lives were torn apart – all for drug offenses that were often non-violent and usually related to a cycle of relentless addiction.

As states have begun moving away from these types of policies, including minimum mandatory sentencing, it may also be time to explore whether the forms of punishment meted out are truly necessary and effective. One of those is the driver’s license suspension. Usually, people would loose their driver’s license for a period of time if they were arrested or convicted of an offense like drunk driving or reckless driving. However, they would usually have it returned after a certain time frame and completion of various requirements, such as paying fines and completing driver’s education classes. This ability to regain one’s license is important because in our modern society, one needs to have the ability to get to work, provide for their families and address their medical needs. The thinking goes we should only revoke the privilege when the individual has proven a threat to others on the road. But this kind of reasonable consideration was tossed aside when the War on Drugs came along.

Drug offenders started being denied all kinds of public services, and in the 1990s, Congress threatened to slash federal highway funds to states that didn’t revoke licenses of people convicted of drug offenses. So of course, some did, though a fair number also opted out when they learned how harmful these suspensions were and also how much it cost to oversee the process. Continue reading

January 15, 2017

Future of Florida’s Death Penalty Uncertain as Past Cases Reviewed

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

The Florida Supreme Court – for the second time in as many months – ruled the state’s death penalty law is unconstitutional and can’t be applied to prosecutions that are pending. Effectively, that means death penalty murder trials are on hold for now. The ruling was handed down in a one-paragraph order. Some judges, including chief judge John Galluzzo for Brevard and Seminole counties, have held that the guilt phase of these trials may proceed, so long as the sentencing phase is postponed until after state lawmakers have time to rewrite the statute.

These judges have defended the decisions saying that while the rulings that have been handed down from the Florida Supreme Court may seem confusing, it’s believed capital murder trials could continue, so long as certain defense rights are defended. Specifically, that means that all 12 members of the jury must unanimously agree to recommend the death penalty, rather than simply a majority or having the judge decide, as has been the case in the past with this state.

However, the most recent order handed down by the state supreme court says that Florida’s death penalty law has been invalidated “as a whole.” The court was very clear in saying it cannot be applied to prosecutions that are pending. Meanwhile, the high court’s ruling last month indicated that the state’s death penalty law was so fundamentally erroneous – and had been that way for so long – that more than half the people on death row are likely entitled to new sentencing hearings. That covers more than 200 inmates who are waiting to die on Florida’s death row. Continue reading

January 9, 2017

Boca Raton Marijuana Grow Charges Await Ex-Fugitive

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

Federal investigators began looking into a suspected grow house in Boca Raton back in 2011. But just a few days after they began their inquiry, the prime suspect allegedly fled the country for Costa Rica.

Now, the 69-year-old has been extradited from the Central American country to face charges of illegal marijuana cultivation. However, The Sun-Sentinel reports the man, appearing recently before a Palm Beach County judge, insists he was never an international fugitive because he wasn’t hiding. He pointed to the fact that he continued to pay his taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. What’s more, he was collecting his Social Security payments addressed to Costa Rica and he was even registered with the U.S. Embassy there. He also opened a cigar store and lounge in the capital city and gave interviews to local media.

Ultimately, it was a local dispute regarding his cigar store that garnered the attention of local officials, who later discovered he was wanted in the U.S. He later agreed to the extradition to the U.S. on the marijuana grow house charges, which were filed after he left the country. Investigators say there were a total of 984 marijuana plants on the property. Continue reading