BOCA MAYOR GETS NEW LAWYER, FILES FOR DISMISSAL
Attorney’s former clients include developer at the center of Boca scandal.
BOCA RATON — Beleaguered Mayor Susan Haynie hired a criminal defense lawyer who previously represented the real estate developer at the center of her public corruption scandal.
Haynie, suspended from office while she faces four felonies and three misdemeanors, has dropped her attorney and hired Bruce Zimet, a former federal prosecutor with a long list of high-profile clients, including developer James Batmasian who pleaded guilty to payroll tax evasion in 2008 and served eight months in federal prison.
Batmasian, the largest commercial landowner in Boca Raton, is a key player in the scandal that forced Haynie from office.
Within days of his hiring, Zimet filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Haynie, in part because a state law aimed at public corruption changed in 2016.
At the root of the charges: The two-term mayor and her husband collected $140,000 since 2014 from business deals with Batmasian and his wife, Marta, and Haynie failed to disclose them on mandatory state forms, a State Attorney’s Office investigation alleges. Other charges stem in part from four favorable votes she cast on Batmasian projects without disclosing the business relationship.
Zimet told The Palm Beach Post he hasn’t represented Batmasian since the criminal case a decade ago and there is no conflict of interest in representing Haynie.
“They’re totally separate cases,” Zimet said.
Haynie’s motion, provided to The Post by Zimet, seeks to dismiss three charges of official misconduct, which allege that Haynie as an elected official breached the public trust by falsifying documents. Haynie, a Republican two-term mayor, is accused of not reporting $335,000 in earnings on mandatory state financial disclosure forms for 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Post reported in November that Haynie did not report earnings from a company co-founded with her husband on the forms.
Where the law once required the state prove an elected official acted with “corrupt intent,” it now requires only that an elected official “knowingly and intentionally” committed the crime.
Haynie’s attorney argues the state attorney did not find probable cause for “corrupt intent” for the acts that took place before the new law took effect Oct. 1, 2016.
The motion to dismiss also attempts to toss the felony perjury charge and misdemeanor charges of misuse of public office, corrupt misuse of official position and failure to disclose a voting conflict because the state attorney did not specify the behavior it alleges is a crime.
Haynie plans to plead not guilty, according to the motion. Her arraignment, a reading of charges in court, is planned for Wednesday.
Among Zimet’s past clients are other high-profile Palm Beach County officials.
Zimet represented former Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus during several public corruption investigations that resulted in four commissioners being charged with felonies. Marcus was never charged, but her fellow commissioners — Jeff Koons, Tony Masilotti, Mary McCarty and Warren Newell — were charged with felonies in a takedown that branded Palm Beach County “Corruption County.” All but Koons served prison time.
Zimet also defended former
Delray Beach City Commissioner Angeleta Gray in 2015, when she was acquitted of criminal charges stemming from corruption allegations.
Gray was accused of casting a vote to award a $50,000 contract to a company that employed her then-campaign manager, Alberta McCarthy. At the time, Gray revealed no conflict of interest.
In the early 2000s, Zimet represented Lloyd Hasner, former chairman of the Palm Beach County Housing Finance Authority, found guilty at trial of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. Hasner collected an illegal $22,500 “finder’s fee” on a $16 million public housing project in Greenacres.
Zimet argued at the time that Hasner declared a conflict of interest and didn’t cast a vote on the housing project. But federal prosecutors said the law requires officials to spell out a conflict while Hasner wrote only “potential conflict” on mandatory forms.
Haynie, too, declared a “potential conflict” of interest, but she abstained from voting on one Batmasian project in 2011, The Post reported in November. Haynie had City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser seek guidance from the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics on whether she could vote on Batmasian proposals.
The Ethics Commission staff initially advised her to abstain, but the circumstances were refined and resubmitted three times before Haynie got a favorable advisory opinion in 2013. The Ethics Commission has since found, as The Post did in its November story, that the advisory opinion didn’t accurately reflect the business relationship between Haynie and the Batmasians, and therefore didn’t apply to subsequent votes.
Haynie was reprimanded by the Ethics Commission two weeks before the State Attorney’s Office investigation culminated in charges against her.
Haynie, elected seven times to Boca Raton office in the past 17 years, dropped her bid for Palm Beach County Commission shortly after the criminal charges were filed, but she has not resigned from her city position. Gov. Rick Scott suspended her on April 27.