Category Archives: Miami

As everyone knows, Deborah Jeane Palfrey is accused of running a Washington DC. escort service that fronted for a prostitution ring. Her defense strategy is to get ABC to help her to identify her clients (from her phone records), so that she can then call them and have them testify that that they did not have sex with that woman (or man?). Palfrey's version is that her perfectly legal sexual fantasy escort service sent folks who had a contract with her promising not to break the law, and she would be shocked to learn otherwise — and wants the big-name DC types to back her up.

The Miami angle in all this is her lawyer, who it seems came up with this weird but in some sense clever defense strategy, is one Montgomery Blair Sibley who, while admitted in Florida, is facing disbarment for being a being a “vexatious litigant” — in Miami!. His other claim to local fame is that he enjoyed 77 days in a Miami jail for refusing to pay child support.

And according to The Colorful Case of A Well-Named Lawyer, his father is “Harper Sibley Jr., one of the richer and more powerful developers in Florida.”

Somehow it seems right that there would be a Miami link to a good sex & politics scandal.

The Justice Building Blog's “Rumpole” had a satiric posting the other day about how to survive Miami cop stops:

When Stopped by a Metro Dade Police Officer, it is recommended to fold the fifty behind the license and place the thumb over the money and the forefinger over the license. Hand the license to the officer and discretely slide the currency into the officer’s palm. Those of you that have been to Joes and not waited long for a table know how to do it.

When stopped by the City Of Miami or Miami Beach, it is appropriate to immediately advise the officer of any special medical conditions so that they may beat you in a manner that does not aggravate the injury. The City of Miami Beach specifically recommends that you place your wallet in your hand and curl into a fetal position. When the “appropriate amount of force necessary to subdue the unruly motorist” has been applied, Miami Beach requests that the payment to the officer be proffered prior to the arrival of Fire Rescue.

Hialeah and many departments in Broward like to taser their drivers as a way of “warming up” the parties, however quick thinking motorists can negotiate a lower voltage with a private chat with the officer before the taser is used.

Here are a few other “Do’s” and “Don’ts”:

Do: alert the office to any unusually large amount of drugs or money in the car.

Don’t: offer to split the dope with the cop.

Do: Comment on the professionalism and courtesy the officer exhibits when you are pulled over.

Don’t: mention Rodey King, Arthur McDuffie, Officer Lozano, Johnny Cochran, or any type of Ticket Clinic.

I wasn't going to blog it until I saw the story in today's Miami Herald, Mayor's former in-law: Cops clobbered me,

Harry Castro, former brother-in-law of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, said Miami-Dade cops beat him up early Easter morning — in an apparent case of mistaken identity.

…

Police ordered Castro out of the Mercedes at gunpoint. Castro was trying to unbuckle his seat belt when officers yanked him from the car and slapped on handcuffs.

''They started beating the hell out of him,'' [his lawyer] said. “They kicked him in the side. They kicked him in the head. His face is completely swollen, one eye is black and blue and purple and almost completely swollen shut. There's road rash all over his face.''

So maybe Rumpole wasn't kidding?

You may recall a post last week — How Can We Tolerate This? — pointing out a New Times exposé that Miami was requiring homeless sex offenders, whose housing options are severely constrained by local ordinances, to sleep under a bridge on pain of arrest if they were not found there when regularly monitored by their probation officer.

I thought that was pretty disgusting. And that the article was in the grand tradition of muckraking journalism.

One week later, we can now see the effects of this public shaming. Miami officialdom has swung into action:

Following revelations by New Times that a parking lot under the State Road 836 bridge was being used by probation officers as a dumping ground for homeless sex offenders — and that the lot was located within 2500 feet of eight schools, in violation of a county ordinance — two men were moved from under the bridge and placed … under another bridge. Their new home is under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Surrounded by water, palm trees, and endless traffic, they now, presumably, reside a legal distance from schools.

…

Florida Department of Corrections officers who ordered the men to live in the parking lot won't face punitive actions, DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said in an e-mail. “We are one piece of the puzzle,” Plessinger wrote. “The issue of how Miami-Dade, Florida, and this country deal with sex offenders is one that must be addressed not only by the DOC, but by lawmakers, the court system, and the community as a whole.”

We are, some say, judged by how we treat the least and worst among us. At this point, we can only hope that view is mistaken.