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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

BOB LEVY HAS PASSED AWAY

Longtime political kingmaker (and Judge maker) Bob Levy has passed away. 

From the Herald:

Bob Levy, a fixture in Florida’s Capitol for four decades as a lobbyist for a wide array of causes, died Tuesday in Tallahassee. He was 67 and had been battling cancer.
A long-time resident of Miami Beach, Levy had deep political roots in Miami-Dade County and founded a successful lobbying firm, Robert M. Levy & Associates. He lobbied for a number of cities, including Homestead, Doral and Florida City. He built a cottage industry as a consultant for scores of Miami-Dade judicial candidates and mentored dozens of young lobbyists, many of whom are now elected officials or have successful lobbying practices of their own. He called them “Levites” and they were part of his “tribe.”
A skillful storyteller, Levy was known for gathering people on Sundays in Tallahassee for “family dinner.” He was a vodka aficionado — particularly fond of Ketel One — and he was the pioneer of Miami-Dade Days, an annual civic fly-in to Tallahassee. On that day each year he would don a big white apron and personally serve heaping bowls of paella to hungry guests in the Capitol courtyard.
Levy called Dade Days “a way of bringing a little bit of Miami to Tallahassee.”




Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article71441502.html#storylink=cpy

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bob was a nice guy, a family friend. He Ra my Dad's campaign.

Anonymous said...

If you ever wonder how tightly we are bound to our social norms, consider that the strength of the social convention which demands we not speak ill of the dead is so great that the newspaper of record for a great American city can publish a piece like this about a guy like that.

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...

Bob was a generous man who touched many lives. He was a charitable man. He gave back to his community, really communities throughout the State, in many ways. He will be missed.

On a separate note, the person who shall be nameless, he/she, has hired an attorney to defend themselves in the Broward DUI. LSA, Child Neglect case. They hired Pat Trese.

Cap Out .....

Anonymous said...

Interesting potential conflict issue. Trese is partners with the future Broward State Attorney ( hopefully )

Anonymous said...

Wrong. He/She hired Lyons and Lurvey.

The Professor said...

I wish I could share your opinion of Mr. Levy. The truth is that he would send letters to sitting judges threatening, if they did not hire him, he would run someone in their race. He played dirty tricks on opponents, was vindictive on those who did not hire him and cared little for the judiciary except as means of making a lot of money. He was as responsible as anyone for the sad state of the judiciary in this circuit.

I knew Bob Levy. He was a troubled soul. I don't think he had any peace in his life. I hope he found some before his death. That said, I wish death on no one, and especially one involving cancer. I have lost relatives to cancer and it is hardly deserved by anyone.

Anonymous said...

10:37, a man has died. Stop with the gossip-mongering. Honor the dead.

Anonymous said...

Pat is a good lawyer

Anonymous said...

The Professor must have run for Judge and lost to a Levite! What a sore loser!

Anonymous said...

10:57 a.m., according to the Broward Clerk's website, Pat Trese is the attorney of record. He is the partner of Theresa Williams, a former Dade ASA, who is running against Broward SA Mike Satz. The defendant is a Dade ASA in front of a judge who has another Dade ASA (Abbe Rifkin) as an election opponent. Crazy Broweird shit....

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more. Bob politicized judicial races and extorted sitting judges. The last race he had 5 sitting judges pay him 15k a piece just to keep people out of their races and some of those judges sucked. The silence regarding his death speaks volumes. He went with who paid him, not who would make a better judge. Sadly though there are Plenty of people waiting to fill his shoes. I'm sorry but it's probably a good thing for the judiciary that he is gone.

Anonymous said...

The Professor did loose to a Levite who did not last long and was not worthy of the job. That's what you get with judicial elections and now with the the mess we are in with national politics it's the same- money talks. Sad but that's how it is..

Anonymous said...

you know nothing. Must have been painful to lose your race. Your obviously flawed personality encouraged you to post this therefore I can only imagine what others will say about you when you pass.

Anonymous said...

K

Seth Sklarey said...

I was with Bob Levy in Tallahasse when he came up with the idea for Dade Days. He felt that if Broward could do it, Dade could do it better.
In the wild and wooley days in Tallahassee, Dade County partisans would descend on the Capitol to advocate for their Judicial candidates. The players included bitter rivals Bob Levy and Gerald Schwartz and Judge Art Huttoe who would bring a few girls and a lot of liquor and proceed to wine and dine and and twist arms to put someonebin a race or keep someone out.
The Dade advocates commandeered the Secretary of State's office, blocked elevators and waylaid Fedex delivery men to get the candidates in or out of the races they were interested it.
A great trick was to have a candidate switch races at two minutes after 12 when it was too late to realize what happened.
One time an almost unchallenged Judge who made a particularly bad and thoughtless ruling against me got Albert Zemlock as a challenger as a reward for his callousness. I let him think about it for a few weeks before I asked Albert to withdraw.
Levy and Schwartz used to go atbit hammer and tong.
Schwartz used to remind every potential Judicial candidate that Levy was a convicted felon who had done Federal time.
Bob countered that he acted as a jailhouse lawyer and had the baddest of the Black Muslims at Lewisberg on his side because he got them the right to Kosher food that was also Halal and wrote letters and briefs for them.
Bob was a tireless advocate for his clients, a master at meeting advertising deadlines, lining up the right supporters and even a few bad ones like Al San Pedro who got jailed for giving cash to a school board candidate but other recipients of the cash like Bob Shevin and Claude Pepper got a pass.

Overall Bob was a good guy, a hard worker and an asset to the community.
Unfortunately some of the Judges he got elected weren't.