In trial, DeSantis aide is questioned about politics around suspended prosecutor’s removal
On the first day of the trial in which ousted Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren is trying to get his job back, a top official for Gov. Ron DeSantis testified that he did a thorough job figuring out that Warren was a troublingly progressive prosecutor who was “hostile and antagonistic” to law enforcement and needed to be booted from office.
On Wednesday morning, however, Warren’s attorneys pounced during their cross-examination of “public safety czar” Larry Keefe to point out holes and omissions in his research, including that, outside of the Orange County sheriff, he talked to only Republicans while doing his research on DeSantis’ behalf.
The questioning prompted U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle to ask Keefe: “You can’t give me the name of a single Democrat you talked to besides the sheriff of Orange County?”
That’s correct, Keefe replied, but he clarified that he didn’t know, and didn’t try to find out, anyone’s political affiliation.
“My wife is a Democrat,” Keefe added.
Keefe said one of his first calls was to the Florida Sheriffs Association — a political organization that regularly sides with Republicans, including DeSantis. (The association filed a brief supporting Warren’s suspension.) He also spoke with Republican sheriffs and prosecutors across the state and Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody.
He said he talked to Orange County Sheriff
John Mina, who knew of Warren’s “reputation” as a “[George] Soros-progressive prosecutor,” referring to the billionaire liberal donor.
If Warren’s policies were allowed to proliferate across the state, Keefe said law-enforcement officials told him, it would pose “an immediate, direct hazard to the people” of Florida.
One of Warren’s attorneys, Jean-Jacques Cabou, asked Keefe whether he spoke to Tampa’s current police chief or former police chief and current Mayor Jane Castor or anyone in Warren’s office or victims’ rights groups about Warren’s performance.
Keefe said he did not. Keefe said he spoke with Tampa brothers Preston and Rex Farrior, who have donated thousands of dollars to GOP politicians, including $20,000 to DeSantis, and Tampa lawyer Martin Garcia, who was chairperson of Republican Pam Bondi’s successful campaign for Florida attorney general in 2010. (Garcia’s daughter, a federal prosecutor, was considered as a potential senior member of the office after DeSantis ousted Warren, Keefe testified.)
But he could recall none of them providing any information about specific laws that Warren was not prosecuting, which was the basis of Warren’s removal.
Cabou showed examples of prosecutors in MiamiDade, Broward and Leon counties refusing to prosecute low-level marijuana offenses.
But Keefe said he didn’t research those policies during his review of prosecutors not pursuing crimes.
Keefe was also asked if he was aware of Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma refusing to enforce an assault-weapons registry in 2020 if it were enacted through a constitutional amendment.
Not until recently, Keefe responded.
“It does concern me,” Keefe said.
‘PERHAPS WE SHOULD SEND A LETTER’
Keefe already had his sights set on Warren before the state attorney signed his name to a June 24 letter by a national criminal justice reform group pledging not to prosecute abortion cases.
That letter was the deciding factor to remove Warren, DeSantis officials said this week. But DeSantis’ general counsel, Ryan Newman, first suggested another approach, writing to his colleagues: “Perhaps we should send a letter inquiring.”
They decided not to. Before DeSantis suspended Warren, DeSantis’ attorneys never contacted him or anyone in his office. They did not request the office’s policies, and they did not request any data from his office to show what effect his policies were having on prosecutions.
Someone in DeSantis’ office drew up a memo — to be sent to all state attorneys — requesting information about their “blanket” policies regarding prosecutions, but it was never sent, records in the trial this week showed.
DeSantis’ chief deputy general counsel, Raymond Treadwell, testified Wednesday that contacting Warren or other people in the office would have “tipped him off” that he was going to be suspended.
DeSantis’ attorneys didn’t start requesting information from Warren’s office until after his suspension on Aug. 4 — and only to prepare for a trial in the Florida Senate, where executive suspensions are typically challenged, Treadwell said.
That trial in the Senate hasn’t happened because Warren sued in federal court, claiming his right to free speech was violated.
Warren’s team rested its case on Wednesday. The case could wrap up on Thursday.