JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Monday, April 10, 2006

ITS ALL GREEK TO US

A reader makes an allegation against an ASA:

Mr. R,

I have a few questions. I hear life at the SAO is better now that they have finally set in on their new pod system, is this true?

Is it true that Mike Grieco was under investigation for bribes and KFR swept the truth under the door because Grieco is handling a high publicity case and KFR does not need to run for state attorney again? Also, is it true that Grieco is doing special favors for friends on the beach, those friends that he knew from his business days on the beach? I heard Grieco got a couple of cases dismissed, after Grieco failed to convince the detectives that his friends were innocent. Rumor is Grieco got the cased dismissed on a C4 motion and the ASA was fired because he did not respond to the C4 motion. Was it Grieco who told him not to respond to the C4 motion.
Is it true that KFR would fail a random drug test?

Another reader has the inside scoop:

Grieco called up a detective (Ramos) on South Beach the night his friend got arrested. Grieco told the detective, whose wife is a former ASA, and told him not to make the arrest. Grieco said the defendant was a friend of his and the detective should not make the arrest, as a favor to Grieco. The detective did the right thing and made the arrest.Grieco, allegedly, even went into Leyte's courtroom and said he was going to represent his friend but he was still an ASA. Supposedly Leyte told Grieco to file his NOA after he left the SAO and told Grieco his antics were unethical.Grieco left the SAO, but did not represent his friends.Grieco came back to the SAO and the case was still pending. Interesting that the case was dismissed based on a C4 motion not being responded to. The ASA who was handling the case, left the office during the time the C4 motion was pending. Don Horn said Grieco did nothing wrong. Horn said the case should have been handled better by the pit prosecutor. Horn said he was sorry there was an error and that the C4 motion should have been responded to.I got this story from an attorney who was representing the victim in the case. Neither the victim nor his attorney ever got a letter of apology or an explanation on Grieco's games.Grieco is real ethical.


(Former?) ASA Jonathan Davidoff wrote in with this to say:

Hello all. I do not know if this is working, but I will give it a try.Honestly, I could careless about Mike Grieco and his friends. I do not think you should all get down into name calling and ridiculous allegations about wealth, body build, or sexual orientation. The bottom line about Mike Grieco is that he abused his power as an ASA. Simple as that.Mike tried to exert his influence over a police officer when he should not have been involved in the case. It is true that Mike did call the detective up and vouched for his friend. Mike asked the officer not to arrest his friend. Additionally, Mike called me the day after the arrest and asked me to have the victim not cooperate with the State and not to attend the prefile conference. Mike told me he was going to represent his friend. Finally, I heard that Mike went to the courtroom the day of the arraignment and wanted to file a notice of appearance. However, I heard the judge and clerk told him he could not until he was in private practice.The case was filed against Mike's friend and a co-defendant. There were independent witnesses to the crime, who did not know either the defendants or the victim. There was no knife involved. The victim knew the defendant through the defendant's girlfriend, who had a previous altercation with the victim. Finally, this incident took place at Rock Bar and it is true that the defendants were not permitted in the bar. What Mike failed to tell you all is that his friend told the bouncer that he was going to kick the shit out of the bouncer.Month later, the case was dismissed because the ASA handling the case did not traverse the case. I reported Mike to KFR and Don Horn told me that Mike should never have called the police officer and that it was a mistake not to traverse the motion to dismiss. Don offered his apology, but would never write a letter to the victim.That is the case. Simple as that. Mike is who he is and I thank him for his services to the people of Miami-Dade County. We appreciate you staying on the side of good. I forgot to say one more thing. I have never met the victim in the case, he was sent to me by a friend. I was not paid one penny. I never asked for a penny. I was not hired to represent the victim on the civil matter either. I just assisted the victim in presenting his case to the State. Grieco got the great Robert Reiff to defend his friends during the prefile.Also, I am not friends with the officer, I do not believe I ever met him

This post was just too funny to leave out:

I said he would do just fine, not well, but in either case that's hardly the point. How about everyone just go back to the "If someone abuses their authority then...they're a scumbag." As far as I can tell, only one person on this whole page has first hand knowlege of any of the goings on in the Matter of Disgruntled Posters v. Grieco. That would be Davidoff. He can make whatever assertions he wants because he put his name to it. All the others seem to just not like him. It would be so easy to just pick another ASA (or PD) at random and talk about how scummy he/she is.

Sweet Jehovah Witness! It just occurred to me that I'm defending Grieco. Rump, this is a very strange post. I say we all pick on someone else, because now more than ever Mr. DJ will be very proud that he has occupied so much space.


Rumpole notes that Judge Lindsey just sent ASA Grieco a dozen roses for getting her out of the blog’s crossfire.

See You In Court.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think Don H is sending flowers to anyone these days? I think the SAO needs a clean up job and flowers would be nice.

People talk about the dead weight in the office, I think there needs to be a new hiring group. The people hired in that office is incredible. Clean up the top and improve the new additions.

Grieco should be the first out the door. Let him move up to NY, I thin he passed the bar.

Anonymous said...

when i was a public defender i tried a case againt mike g. he was a good guy and he was a talented trial atty. all you moralists should ask yourselves a question: if you were a state atty and one of your buddies was arrested, wouldnt you try to help him out? most of us would. keep your head up mike.

Anonymous said...

davidoff, i got a couple stories about you. i demand a retraction!

Anonymous said...

Ask the prosecutors, both former and current, about the hypotehticals they got when they were interviewed. IF you were not willing to turn your friend in, you did not get hired.

Anonymous said...

i wouldnt turn in my coke friend, so thats why i didnt get the job? phew, thank god i didnt work for the hell hole....

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...

ELECTION UPDATE:

First Quarter reports are due for candidates and the first to file is candidate Robert Twombley. Twombley is running for a seat on the County Court against Stephen Millan.

Twombley reports $10,081.20 in loans and an additional $9,725 from 35 contributors. By the way, according to his expense report, we should all be looking around for T-shirts and hand fans as Twombley spent nearly $3,000 on 96 T-shirts and 5,000 hand fans.

Millan has yet to report his first quarter contributions.

I'm going back to sipping a pina colada on the beach in the Virgin Islands.

Captain - OUT ......

Anonymous said...

what a joke! davidoff you never worked that late. Maybe if county had a nice buffet but that never happened.

Anonymous said...

Davidoff did work late, believe it or not. No buffets those days, only on his trips to Vegas. Are you jealous of Davidoff's lifestyle?

Rumpole said...

Rumpole notes the devotion the Captain has shown by taking time out from his vacation to leave a post.

Anonymous said...

Norma helps Mike:

Lindsey can help Grieco in an odd way. Just imagine, with Grieco's ego, if Norma, with her obvious pro-state slant, denied a Grieco motion, it would immediately reduce his huge ego and make him less misreable a person.

Anonymous said...

last poster:
your a shitbird.

Anonymous said...

Chirp chirp chirp, said the little sbird.

Anonymous said...

Davidoff was a serious ASA during the week and a serious party animal on the weekends.

Anonymous said...

I think that we should reelect Manny Diaz so that he can endorse Joe Arriola for State Attorney. At least nobody would be surprised by all these shenanigans. Of course we would all bitch and moan about it, but somehow everyone would get reelected as they always have around here. We're the ones who know the qualities of our elected leaders (or lack thereof). Don't like KFR? Think Don Horn is an incompetent lackey who sells out his ASAs at the drop of a hat, while telling his prosecutors that they're a team and a "family?" Lawyers who know what's up can actually do something about this mess, but we won't, so I look forward to many good times and many more scandals revealed on the blog. Good night and good luck.

Anonymous said...

I think it is good if you can have a good balance of working hard during the week and partying during the weekends. Being able to perform like that is hard, but if you can do it why not!

Yes lots of scandals from the Horn/KFR camp to come, I am sure.

Anonymous said...

I hear Horn is in trial this week...anyone know what Judge?

Anonymous said...

i could destroy davidoff with a few choice facts but i choose not to be a snitch like him. out.

Anonymous said...

Jon, stop the ranting. Let the subject change to someone who deserves this type of scruitiney...Don Horn.

Anonymous said...

We should all be thanking Mr. Davidoff for exposing a potential scandal at the SAO. To me this is far worse than the ASA arrested for personal drug use. This goes against the basic ethics of being a lawyer. Maybe for my next trial I will assume the role of defense attorney and ASA at the same time.

Anonymous said...

Jon is terrific. But if you think Mike trying to help someone is the worst think going on at the SAO, then you need to speak to some who can give you info on DH or others. Take a look sometime at Kristie "Crossword puzzles are my specialty" Bettendorf sometime "earning" her six-figure sallary in the back of the SAO office during one of her many, many cigarett breaks. In the meantime, DH will bust someones nuts for missing a leave slip. The office is being run like a joke and a working hypocracy.

Anonymous said...

"working hypocracy"?

Anonymous said...

of course the office is run like a joke; it is a joke. but on who is the question?

Anonymous said...

David Rank is the rumor.

Anonymous said...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Anonymous said...

Question: If JA D’ARCE cannot campaign on Court time, why can Grieco represent defendants on SAO time?

Anonymous said...

Say what you want about Davidoff, but we need guys like him to protect our community. He worked his ass off and fought hard. While I didn't always agree with his decisions, I respected him more than most others because his heart was in the right place. I'll take a guy like him over the complacent, uncaring ASA's that so many of you "like" better.

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess if these ASAs keep it up, Bennett will end up representing prosecutors on PD time. Most will qualify as indigent anyway.

Anonymous said...

why is greeco so cool? i have more respect for my wrench than that tool

Anonymous said...

Bennett is to afraid to represent anyone. Maybe he could get Weed or Rory to help.

Anonymous said...

Davidoff is a turd.

Anonymous said...

But Davidoff is right!

Anonymous said...

Davidoff was a cool character in the Justice Building: a tough prosecutor that looked like the tough owner of a honky tonk bar.

Anonymous said...

More news about Grieco:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14326055.htm

Posted on Wed, Apr. 12, 2006

Prosecutor's weekend DJ job new wrinkle in Taylor case

BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH
snesmith@MiamiHerald.com

Attorneys for Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor plan to ask a judge to dismiss aggravated assault charges against him because the prosecutor in the case has a website that linked to articles about the Taylor case.

Attorney Janice Burton Sharpstein claims the website and the link to news articles shows that Assistant State Attorney Mike Grieco is only prosecuting Taylor because he wants to be known as a prosecutor of the stars and in order to further his side career as a weekend disc jockey.

''The prosecutor is not interested in just the facts of the case,'' she said. ``He's interested in promoting his fame by prosecuting celebrities. He's using those articles to promote his business as DJ Esquire.''

Grieco deleted the links on his web page on Myspace.com Wednesday morning after learning of Sharpstein's intention to file a motion to have the case dismissed.

He declined to comment on Sharpstein's allegations.

The State Attorney's Office says Taylor was charged based on reliable information and his prosecution has nothing to do with Grieco's side business or website. The office gave Grieco permission to do side work as a disc jockey.

Taylor, a former University of Miami star, was arrested in June after police say he waved a gun at several people he believed were involved in the theft of a friend's all-terrain vehicle. His case was postponed several times so he could play football last season.

It is currently scheduled to go to trial on May 8th.

Anonymous said...

All of you who are commenting on Davidoff and Grieco's appearance, personalities, etc. rather than the allegations remind me of the superficial jurors we always complain about.........you know, the ones who focus more on the attorneys' ties than the state's evidence (they're the exception, rather than the rule, like you, but, hopefully, you get my point). You're pathetic.

Anonymous said...

I hope the jury pays more attention to my tie than the evidence!

Anonymous said...

that cbs story on the sean taylor case was brilliant. all around academy award winner. we have a teenie bopper web site, a topless prosecutor, the name DJ ESQUIRE, shady defense atttorney dropping lewd and lascivious bombs, blond sidekicks whining about the constitution, an nfl baller, ferundle, did i mention the topless prosecutor?

bravo!

Anonymous said...

i wear great tie's! fuck the evidence, its all about the threads. evidence might lead to a conviction, but a burberrys will usually score an acquittal.

-sharp dresser