Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Police are searching for the shooter or shooters who gunned down three people at a child’s birthday party Sunday night.

The shooting occurred at 10 p.m. at a home located near Northeast 143rd and Sixth Avenue. North Miami Police said someone fired shots through a fence into a crowd of party-goers in the backyard. The three people who were wounded by the gunfire are recovering at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The two men and one woman are all expected to be OK.

The party-goers, who were celebrating a child’s second birthday, never saw the shooter so police do not have much information to go on. “We don’t have a description of a shooter or shooters at this point and we’re trying to find out who the people responsible for this are,” said North Miami Police Lieutenant Neal Cuevas.

One neighbor feels uneasy about the shooting occurring near her home. “I feel very bad because that could actually have been one of my family members,” said Felicia Coward.

North Miami Police are not sure if the shooting was gang-related, but they say they know they have a gang problem in the area.

Police continue to search for the killer of a pregnant teenager who was found murdered in the parking lot of a Broward supermarket.

According to the Miramar Police Department, the body of 17-year-old Stefanie Rabsett was found in the parking lot of a Winn Dixie located at 6301 SW 41st St. Friday, at around 6:30 p.m.

Police found the body inside a red Ford Taurus and said Rabsett was six months pregnant with a baby boy. “This is a very tragic event. You have a 17-year-old who is approximately six months pregnant and was found murdered in this vehicle, so anyone with information, and we are pleading the public, to please contact Broward County Crime stoppers. Someone out there knows who could have done this,” said Miramar Police spokesperson Tania Rues.

Rabsett’s sister rushed to the scene when she received the horrific phone call. “I was screaming and yelling because I knew something was wrong, and I asked them just tell me if my sister is OK, and when he said he could not tell me she was OK, I knew something was wrong,” said Marciey Thomas.

Javona Boyd is Rabsett’s cousin and said she saw her the day before her murder. “We were planning her baby shower. We have been planning everything as one, and it just hurts when you see someone one day, and you know there’s nothing wrong. If there was something wrong, I’m pretty sure she would have told me because we talk,” said Boyd.

Rabsett was a student at Macfatter Technical Center in Davie, and those who knew Rabsett said she was a very happy teen. “She was always smiling and laughing and she was just so goofy and giggly, and if something was wrong, anyone would have noticed. She was just a happy person, period, through out her whole lifetime,” said Boyd.

“It’s so hard, and it does not seem real right now that someone would do that, that someone would take her life and suffer like that and with her baby,” said Thomas.

An autopsy was made and revealed signs of foul play. Police continue to investigate, no arrests have been made.

Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards last year.

The FBI and state authorities were making arrests Wednesday. The workers being sought were hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

Prosecutors say they were first notified by ACORN about problems with workers in June 2008.

ACORN has been accused by Republicans and conservative activists with fraud in voter registration drives around the country. ACORN officials say the Florida case proves the organization is committed to an honest process.

The case involved about 888 fraudulent voter cards in the Homestead area.

Police have released a few more details on their on-going investigation of a shooting that left three people dead and one person in critical condition.

Tuesday afternoon, officials had yet to release the identities of the victims. They did say the victims are related but are not saying how. Authorities also said relatives are flying over from another country to be at the bedside of the one survivor.

A day after police arrived at the home on the 9600 Block of Encino Drive around 2 p.m. Monday with a heavily armed force, the case remains shrouded in mystery. “Obviously, this is an active investigation,” said Miramar Police Spokesperson Tania Rues. “We will probably have more information when it comes to suspects and so forth later on in the day as well.”

Before police arrived with that heavy force, they received a call from a friend from the surviving victim. Police said the victim told the friend she had been shot in the face during a robbery the day before. “Our understanding is that she called the friend yesterday, said that she had been shot the day before,” said Rues. “However, that is what she said. We are still working on trying to establish the time line and pin down exactly what happened when.”

Whatever happened, the fact remains three people are dead and one is clinging to life after a shooting in a home. Neighbors are stunned. “This is shocking, definitely shocking,” said one man. “This is something that one would never want to have happen in the neighborhood.”

Residents in the area said a woman and three teenage sons live in the home. “As far as I know they are nice kids,” said another man. “They play basketball in the front, and it’s just a terrible thing.”

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Miami Police have released surveillance video of four armed men storming into a barber shop and attacking a local entertainer before robbing him.

Police said four black males between the ages of 18 and 25 years old invaded a barber shop on July 29 where Opa-Locka rapper, “Brisco”, was getting his hair cut. The armed subjects ordered the employees and customers to the floor inside the shop located at 6301 Northwest Sixth Avenue.

One of the men pistol-whipped “Brisco” and robbed him of his gold chain, watch, money and his sport utility vehicle. “There was a local rapper who had just left the photoshoot. He went to a barber shop to get his hair cut. They took a little bit more off the top then expected,” said Miami Police Officer Jeffery Giordano. “This robbery was off the chain. Four men entered the store, guns drawn, firing shots, luckily no one was hurt, robbing each individual that was in the barber shop. For a rapper to have his bling stolen, they might have well stolen that man’s heart. They took his car also. He had a Range Rover. The vehicle was recovered in another location.”

Authorities want to question an unknown man who was sitting in corner of the barber shop on a cellphone before robbery took place. Officials said after everything was stolen, one of the subjects tapped that man and he ran out.

If you have any information on this armed robbery, call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a reward.

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Homeless advocates and county officials intend to move a group of registered sex offenders living under a bridge to private housing this week amid growing criticism — and lawsuits — over the county’s ordinance that they must live 2,500 feet from places where children gather.

But some offenders are reluctant to move, saying that being told where to live, and with whom, is similar to the prison terms they have already served.

“I’m not in prison anymore,” said Reg, a 44-year-old offender who served six years behind bars for molesting a minor. He declined to give his last name for fear he may lose his job as a cook. “I’m a taxpayer, I’m on probation and I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t want to be told to live somewhere.”

He is one of about 70 registered offenders living in tents or makeshift huts near a busy bridge that connects Miami to Miami Beach. In the past three years, it’s become a shantytown of men on probation who struggle to find affordable housing that doesn’t violate Miami-Dade County’s strict ordinances against sex offenders living too close to schools, parks and other places frequented by children.

The bulk of the felons living under the bridge — and in tents lining the side of the causeway, in full view of tourists headed to the beach — are on state probation. Department of Corrections officers have been unable to find suitable housing for them in part because of affordability and the local ordinances, and the men have been ordered to live at the bridge so they don’t run afoul of the law.

This week, however, the chairman of the county’s Homeless Trust said the group will move eight offenders off the property and into an apartment. It’s unclear how far the apartment is from the bridge — officials won’t say — but several men there said Wednesday that a location in Homestead, some 35 miles south, was under consideration.

“This is the most movement we’ve had in three years,” said Ron Book, the trust’s chairman. “But this isn’t a long-term solution. The state’s got to come to grips that we’ve got a growing population coming out of the prisons.”

Book said that he and other local and state officials are looking for a bigger place to house the remaining people. Under consideration: a vacant county jail. Book said the space could be renovated so the men wouldn’t feel like they were incarcerated again.

“That’s unacceptable,” said Reg, shaking his head.

Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the county, saying the ordinance should be overturned because it’s more restrictive than the 1,000-foot limit set by the state. Also this month, the city of Miami sued the state, saying the makeshift camp is too close to a small island park accessible only by boat.

Many in the community are disgusted and fed up with how the issue has been handled.

“Nobody has the courage to talk about this,” said Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. “They don’t want to talk about sex offenders. Yet we say to our tourists as they go to the beach, look to your left, look to your right, this is where sex offenders are placed.”

Sarnoff blames Gov. Charlie Crist.

“We need a uniform system,” said Sarnoff. “We need some ability to place them somewhere.”

County Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz also blames on the state, pointing out that there are some 3,000 sex offenders in Miami-Dade County, the bulk of whom have found adequate housing.

“The county ordinance didn’t prevent them from finding housing,” he said. “The state is creating an issue out of an issue.”

State officials won’t discuss it because legal action is pending but Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said the agency is “really pleased” that local officials are looking for housing alternatives.

The ACLU’s Howard Simon said it’s great that the folks living at the bridge will soon get homes, but questions whether this will solve the overall problem.

“It’s like dealing with the symptoms and not the cause,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time before there will be another shantytown.”

Rigoberto Gonzalez, a 57-year-old who served 16 years in prison on multiple child rape and molestation charges, shrugs when asked where the state should send him. He’s been living in a tent under the bridge since he was released in May, and is aided with food and water from friends. Gonzalez has no family — they are all in Cuba — and says he can’t work because his green card was taken away when he went to prison.

“If the government pays for an apartment, I’ll go,” said Gonzalez, in Spanish. “I would prefer to work and pay for an apartment myself. All I ask is that they treat us like people, not animals.”

He adds that if he were given the option to return to Cuba — a country he left in 1980 — then he would go back.

“In Cuba, there are human rights.”

 U.S. mortgage fraud reports jumped 36 percent last year as desperate homeowners and industry professionals tried to maintain their standard of living from the boom years, the FBI said on Tuesday.

Suspicious activity reports rose to 63,713 in fiscal year 2008, which ended last September, from 46,717 the year before. California and Florida, centers of the housing bust, had the highest numbers of suspicious reports as foreclosures jumped, the stock market dropped and credit dried up.

“These combined factors uncovered and fueled a rampant mortgage fraud climate fraught with opportunistic participants desperate to maintain or increase their current standard of living,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in its report.

“Industry employees sought to maintain the high standard of living they enjoyed during the boom years of the real estate market and overextended mortgage holders were often desperate to reduce or eliminate their bloated mortgage payments,” it said.

Reports filed through March put fraud reports on track to top 70,000 in the current fiscal year, the agency said.

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A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge granted an Aventura developer accused of murdering his wife a $500,000 bond Thursday.

Three weeks ago, during Adam Kaufman’s initial bond hearing, Judge David Mansfield determined that the prosecution had met the presumption of guilt requirement necessary to warrant holding the 33-year-old without bond until his trial.

Mansfield said that decision weighed heavily on his mind, and after prosecutors failed to re-examine specific pieces of evidence at his request, the judge reversed course. “I do readily admit to thinking about that factor long and hard on Father’s Day,” said Mansfield, “which kind of prompted me to at least revisit the issue and see if anything that I ordered to be done was done. Once I got the motion, it seems like it wasn’t done, so that’s very disappointing.”

The judge wanted the magazine rack the defense contended Eleonora fell and choked herself on in November 2007 to be re-examined for blood evidence. Mansfield also wanted the surveillance video from the couple’s Aventura home examined to figure out when the father of two entered and exited the residence, which would determine if the defendant was in bed as his attorneys allege or was out and came home late, as prosecutors claim.

Kaufman will be released Friday, at which time he will be fitted with a monitoring device he will wear while on house arrest until his trial, which may begin in November.

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The City of Miami Police Department has released a sketch of a sex predator who attacked a woman while she was sitting in her car.

Police said the woman was inside her vehicle along Southeast 10th Street and Brickell Bay Drive in Miami when a man forced his way into her car and sexually assaulted her. One woman who lives and works nearby was shocked to hear about the attack. “It’s a tragic,” said Michelle Silva. “Anybody who lives in the Brickell area knows it’s a pretty safe area.”

The assault happened on June 6 between the hours of 3 and 4 in the morning. The victim told police she had just left the Red Bar and sat in her car trying to decide whether she should drive home or stay at a friend’s place nearby.

As she was sitting in the car, a man approached the vehicle and asked if she was all right and forced his way inside. “The victim passed out,” explained Miami Police Officer Jeffrey Giordano. “When she awakened, she realized she had been sexually assaulted.”

The suspect is described as a white man with a thin build, light eyes and brown, short air. The victim said he spoke with possibly a British or European accident.

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Florida officials say they have arrested 77 men on charges of possessing obscene materials in a cybercrime sweep.

Florida state Attorney General Bill McCollum said the arrests came as part of a 10-week crackdown on Internet child pornography dubbed “Operation Orange Tree,” targeting some of the state’s worst alleged cybercrime offenders, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

Accompanying McCollum was John Walsh, host of the television show “America’s Most Wanted” and father of a 6-year-boy who was kidnapped from a Hollywood, Fla., mall and killed in 1981, the newspaper said.

“As a Floridian, I’m proud of the work of all the agencies involved — it sets a great example for the other 49 states,” Walsh said.

McCollum said 17 of those arrested possessed a tutorial video on how to sexually molest children without being detected, while five minors were rescued from abusive situations.