Fort Lauderdale Criminal Attorney Blog

July 31, 2016

$30,000 Settlement for Wrongful Arrest in Lauderdale Ecstasy Case

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

A man arrested for possession of ecstasy in Fort Lauderdale in 2013 has won $30,000 from the city after the nine pills with yellow hearts stamps reportedly turned out to be aspirin.

The 37-year-old sued the city in civil court alleging false arrest, battery and unlawful search following a 2013. According to The Sun Sentinel, plaintiff in the case, Antonio Grant was a passenger in a vehicle that had been pulled over for expired tags.

He was allegedly handcuffed at gunpoint, ordered face-down on the asphalt and forcibly had his shorts searched. The officer also reportedly searched his rectum digitally to look for drugs. Officers did find nine pills, but testing proved the substance was actually generic aspirin. Continue reading

July 24, 2016

Army Sergeant Arrested in Broward for Underage Sex Crimes

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

A U.S. Army sergeant is facing serious felony charges after the 26-year-old reportedly showed up at an agreed-upon location with lubricant, candy, condoms and cash for what he thought would be an encounter with two young girls, ages 12 and 14.

Instead, was greeted by agents with both the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He apparently did not realize he had been communicating with an undercover law enforcement officer.

According to the Sun Sentinel, Alexis Kirk Torres was reportedly in the process of transferring from Hawaii to a new base for a different assignment. However, he now faces charges of soliciting or enticing underage children to engage in a commercial sex act. Continue reading

July 20, 2016

Man’s 9th DUI Conviction Lands Him in Prison for Life

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

Unless you seriously injure or kill someone while driving drunk, a DUI conviction probably isn’t going to result in a long-term prison sentence. However, defendants should be aware that the more convictions they rack up, the more likely they are to serve time. And if a judge wants to make an example or send a message, they may have wide discretion to do so.

This kind of harsh sentence is uncommon for those with drunken driving convictions. Usually, convictions result in temporary license suspensions and perhaps a stint in prison. But in most cases, the defendant is ultimately released and eventually allowed back on the road. This case raises the question of how many times a person has to be caught driving legally drunk before the judge will lock them up for a long time?

Take the recent case of a 56-year-old Houston man with eight prior convictions for DUI. Upon his ninth conviction for DUI – after he pleaded guilty to the charge – the judge sentenced him to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 30 years. Continue reading

July 16, 2016

NYT: A $2 Roadside Drug Test is Sending Innocent People to Jail

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

It is common in traffic stops where officers suspect the presence of drugs to search the driver and request a search of the vehicle. If an officer finds a substance he or she suspects to be an illicit drug, they rely on a roadside drug test to make the call. The results of these $2 kits, which have largely remained the same in design and process since they were first released in 1973, can mean the difference between a person being released at the scene or being arrested on felony charges.

In a troubling expose on these kits, The New York Times delved into the accuracy of these kits and what they have meant to the lives of many of the 1.2 million people who are arrested annually in the U.S. on illegal drug possession charges. While those arrested are presumed innocent until proven guilty, these cheap testing kits are often a key deciding factor in how public defenders fight these cases and how prosecutors pursue them.

One analysis of the accuracy of the kits was conducted by the laboratory system operated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). What they discovered was that more than 20 percent of the evidence police listed as “methamphetamine” in fact was NOT methamphetamine. In fact, half of the false positives weren’t even drugs at all. A tracking by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office revealed 15 false methamphetamine positives just in the first seven months of 2014. Further, in combing through department records, officers had been given ambiguous instructions on how to conduct the tests and some misunderstood which colors indicated a positive and which indicated a negative. Continue reading

July 13, 2016

Liquid Anti-Crime Tool Draws Mixed Reviews From South Florida Police

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

It’s touted as a smart way to identify alleged thieves, drive down property crimes and return stolen possessions. It’s a spray called SmartWater CSI, and it’s a liquid that glows under ultraviolet light. The liquid is intended for spray on property or intruders, and it leaves a residue that is detectable on people for several weeks and on property for years.

Since more than two dozen law enforcement agencies in South Florida signed up to use the liquid, 11 say property crimes have taken a nosedive. However, it’s only resulted in half a dozen arrests and in no case has stolen property been recovered and returned to its owner. In fact, a number of law enforcement agencies say it doesn’t seem as if the product actually works.

As criminal defense lawyers, we would have a number of questions as to how a certain piece of property could be traced back to that particular owner or how spray identified on a certain individual could be traced back to the crime scene. Continue reading

July 10, 2016

Broward Robbery Arrest Made After Suspect Fingerprints Identified

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

A 27-year-old Broward County woman is accused of two robberies at two separate banks – one at a SunTrust Bank in Fort Lauderdale and another at a Space Coast Credit Union in Miramar weeks earlier.

Federal authorities with the FBI intervened and linked the two crimes with fingerprints, making an arrest just hours after the alleged second robbery. Investigators say the suspect, Ashley Cambridge, heisted a total of $4,220 collectively in both incidents. In both cases, she reportedly handed tellers a note that began with the phrase, “Don’t try anything stupid.”

After matching the fingerprints, authorities with the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force initiated an arrest against her at her apartment in Hollywood, the Sun-Sentinel reported. Cambridge, a mother of two small children, reportedly confessed her involvement in both robberies to authorities. She even went so far as to sign two photographs of the crime scene, circling the alleged robber in both pictures and writing the word, “Me.” She told investigators some of the money had been spent on her family and rent. Continue reading

July 6, 2016

U.S. Supreme Court: DUI Warrantless Breath Tests OK, Blood Tests Not

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

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down an important Fourth Amendment decision recently in the case of Birchfield v. North Dakota, which dealt with warrantless breathalyzer tests and blood tests, ultimately invalidating implied consent laws that pertain to warrantless blood draws.

Essentially, the court decided that while the government cannot require a person to submit to a blood draw without first obtaining a warrant, the government can require a person arrested for drunken driving to submit to a warrantless breath test.

The case was the result of consolidated appeals from three separate drunk driving arrests in which the defendants were prosecuted – or threatened with prosecution – for refusing to take a blood or breath test. Continue reading

July 2, 2016

Utah v. Strieff – U.S. Supreme Court Expands Lawless Searches

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

In a contentious 5-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court in Utah v. Strieff ruled in favor of a cop who seized drugs after an unlawful stop. It was only after that stop the officer learned the defendant had an outstanding traffic warrant. After making an arrest, the officer searched defendant and found drugs and paraphernalia. Plaintiff argued this evidence should be suppressed under the exclusionary rule.

However, the majority ruled that although the initial stop was not lawful, which would normally mean any evidence obtained thereafter could not be used against defendant, the court instead chose to apply the attenuation doctrine. This doctrine states that even though the way the evidence was obtained was illegal, such evidence can still be admissible if the connection between the evidence and the illegal method is sufficiently thin or attenuated. The court held that the officer made a good-faith mistake when stopping the defendant, who was leaving a suspected drug house. This was not, the court decided, part of some systematic recurrence of police misconduct and nor would the decision result in the proliferation of dragnet searches for those with outstanding arrest warrants.

Dissenting Justice Sonya Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, had strong words of rebuke for the majority on this issue, saying unlawful police stops, “Corrode all our civil liberties and threaten our lives.” Continue reading

June 29, 2016

Florida DUI Arrest 17 Years After Man Fled Before Sentencing

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

Had Robert Cesaire served his prison time per the terms of his plea bargain, he would have been released seven years ago. He’d pleaded guilty in Broward Circuit Court to DUI manslaughter in exchange for a 10-year sentence of a possible 17 years, after which time he was to be deported to Haiti.

But authorities say he fled to Haiti just days before his sentencing in 1999. That was 17 years ago. Now, authorities say he’s been arrested at the Miami International Airport earlier this month. Officials could not say where he was flying from at the time he was arrested, but he is now being held at the Broward Main Jail without bond.

Prosecutors say now that he is in custody, a new sentencing hearing date will be set, at which time they will request the maximum 17-year penalty, given the fact that he fled. Continue reading

June 27, 2016

Broward Sheriff Sergeant Arrested on Child Porn Charges

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

Often when a law enforcement officer is working long hours, it’s a sign of diligence. However, for the colleagues of Broward County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kreg Costa, suspicions were heightened because the road duty supervisor was staying in his office during and after his shift with the lights off and uniform and gun belt removed. Staffers who witnessed his behavior called it “bizarre.”

Detectives with the agency’s public corruption unit launched an investigation that included asking for computer use reports from the sergeant’s work laptop from January to March. That’s when they found images of hardcore pornography, bondage and incest-related sites. Further he was reportedly engaging in sexually explicit messages with a 16-year-old girl on both video chats and Twitter. Costa allegedly instructed the California teen to record herself engaged in sexual activity.

Costa was arrested when he arrived at work for a scheduled training. He has been suspended without pay and faces a total of 29 serious criminal charges, including soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using a computer, use of a child in sexual performance, possession of child pornography and lewd lascivious battery. Continue reading