Governor, sign Lucy's Law. Florida must get boater safety laws right to avoid tragedies
Their words send me right back to the day, almost a year ago, when we lost my daughter Caitlyn's friend, Ella Adler, a student at Ransom Everglades School. The day they described sounded heartbreakingly familiar.
It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the water was glistening. My husband and I had spent the morning on our boat with two of our three children. Caitlyn, our oldest and almost 15 at the time, was also out on the water with eight of her closest friends.
Later that afternoon, I was driving our younger daughter to a party when I got a call from Caitlyn from the boat she was on. It was devastating. I can still hear the terror and hysteria in her voice. 'Ella! Ella! Ella!' She was on speakerphone. I tried to calm her down to understand what had happened.
The kids had been wakesurfing when another boat approached at a high speed. The oncoming boat didn't hear the blaring horn or see the girls in the water. It just swerved, hit Ella and sped away.
In 2013, more than a decade before this fateful day, the daughter of Key Biscayne's police chief was run over by a boat at the Mashta Flats and nearly died. Afterward, the entire community rallied around boat safety. We had the facts, common-sense solutions and an entire village government behind us.
We also had the support of a local foundation, the Monica Burguera Foundation, which sponsors boating certification and safety in memory of Monica, who was killed in 2006 on Biscayne Bay coming back from the Columbus Day Regatta when a boat being towed without lights was a struck by another.
But the short story is that we weren't successful — or even close. The long story is that we ran up against a regulatory morass of competing federal, state and local jurisdictions and an industry that refuses to accept even the most basic regulation around licensing and enforcement.
The first anniversary of Ella's death is approaching, and it's tragic that it has taken this long for sensible regulations to become reality. We need stronger and more impactful boating safety enforcement. There is too much drinking and boating. We need licensing for everyone, not just those born after 1988. The drivers of the boats that killed Ella and Lucy were much older and wouldn't qualify under current licensing laws.
The good news is that, guided by Lucy's parents, the Florida House and Senate have passed Lucy's Law. The law enhances boater safety and increases penalties for dangerous boating. Lucy's Law is the product of an incredible amount of work and an important step forward.
In addition, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, alongside the Lucy Fernandez Foundation, has created a special Boater Safety and Bay Education Task Force to educate the public on safe and responsible recreation.
I am hopeful these actions will help prevent another unnecessary tragedy. I urge Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign Lucy's Law.
Until there is a change, we will continue to lose bright lights — like Ella, Lucy and Monica — who I know would have made our world a better place.
Melissa White is the executive director of the Key Biscayne Community Foundation and a resident of Key Biscayne.
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Miami Herald
5 hours ago
- Miami Herald
‘Psychological warfare': Internal data shows true nature of Alligator Alcatraz
A month into his detention at Alligator Alcatraz, Daniel Ortiz Piñeda faced a stark choice: continue his legal fight for asylum or give it up to hopefully put an end to his extended stay at the makeshift immigration detention camp in the Everglades. The Colombian national, with no criminal record, had the right to remain in the country while appealing the 2023 denial of his asylum request. But last week, the 33-year-old asked his attorney to drop his appeal, preferring repatriation to the possibility of indefinite detention. 'He feels like there's nothing here for him now,' Piñeda's mother said in an interview. Stories like Piñeda's have played out repeatedly at the Everglades detention camp. While it was promoted as a place where migrants with heinous criminal histories would be detained and quickly deported, records exclusively obtained by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times show it was largely used during its first month in operation as a holding pen and transfer hub for immigrants who were still fighting their cases in immigration courts. Hundreds, the records note, did not have criminal convictions or pending charges. At the end of July, when the number of detainees at the site was around its peak, only one in five of the roughly 1,400 detainees at the site had been ordered removed from the country by a judge, a Herald/Times review of the records found. That means hundreds of men were being detained there without final adjudication orders, despite Gov. Ron DeSantis' claims to the contrary. The records also show that nearly two out of every five immigrants listed in early July as being detained at the South Florida facility or headed there were still recorded as detainees at the facility at the end of the month. During that stretch, immigration attorneys claimed their clients had little to no access to the courts and were largely forced to communicate about cases over recorded lines. Lawyers also alleged their clients were pressured to abandon their immigration cases — without legal consultation — and agree to be deported. It wasn't until Saturday that lawyers for the federal government said a Miami immigration court had been designated as the responsible venue for handling Alligator Alcatraz cases. The number of people at Alligator Alcatraz fluctuates daily and has dropped drastically since the beginning of the month, as a federal judge weighs whether to shut down the site. But for detainees held throughout July in chain-link cages and tents the uncertainty created mental pressure that their attorneys and families say was worse than the prospect of being deported, even to a country where they fear persecution. 'Putting people in tents in the middle of the Everglades is a great tool to make them give up their cases,' said Mark Prada, an immigration attorney. The Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of immigrant detainees, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees Alligator Alcatraz operations, did not respond to requests for comment. When the state seized an airstrip in the Big Cypress National Preserve and began constructing a camp to hold thousands of migrants, DeSantis said the site would serve as a 'one-stop' shop for the Trump administration's needs for detention and deportation. Detainees with final orders of removal would be held in tents and quickly deported from an on-site runway, he said. To expedite deportations, DeSantis said qualified National Guard members would work as immigration judges on the site — an idea that President Donald Trump gave a thumbs up to during a July 1 visit. But the plans have yet to be implemented and immigration attorneys have complained for weeks that their Alligator Alcatraz clients have had hearings for their cases routinely canceled in federal Florida immigration courts by judges who said they did not have jurisdiction over the detainees in the Everglades. For hundreds of detainees, that meant weeks of uncertainty living inside tents, where the lights were turned on throughout the day and the only connection to the outside world was often a recorded landline. Attorneys have complained about staff at the facility pressuring their clients to sign voluntary removal orders without consulting an attorney and, in one case, deceiving a detainee with an intellectual disability by telling him he would need to 'sign some paper in exchange for a blanket' — and then deporting him after he had signed it, court filings show. Mark Hamburger, an attorney who has had several clients at the detention camp, said the conditions created a kind of 'psychological warfare' for detainees. 'They're being put to the test,' he said. 'How long can you stand this? A lot of people are folding.' That group of original detainees included Piñeda, who was taken into custody after showing up for a scheduled immigration meeting in Miami Lakes on July 7, according to his family members. 'To have somebody detained like this, pending an appeal, when they have not committed any crimes is unheard of,' said his attorney, Osley Sallent. Piñeda told his family members that when he entered Alligator Alcatraz, the guards told him and other new arrivals, 'As soon as you come in here, you don't have any rights.' It would be days before he could shower, and he said that he hadn't received adequate medical care for an ongoing ear infection and stomach ailment. He was moved to the Glades County Detention Center west of Lake Okeechobee in early August shortly after dropping his asylum appeal. Like Piñeda, the vast majority of detainees in the facility at the end of July had no final order of removal from a judge, according to the new data. That means that the immigration cases for most men at the facility were still ongoing. While the data shows that more than 100 of those detainees had been issued expedited orders of removal – which allows the government to deport them without going through the immigration courts – immigration lawyers said that these can still be appealed in some circumstances, such as when an immigrant is seeking asylum. 'Finality is a big deal,' Prada said. 'If it is not final, there is still a process to be done.' The Herald compared the two datasets, one of roughly 750 detainees from early July and the other of roughly 1,400 people from the end of the month. Reporters also searched for all of the detainees in the first list on ICE's detainee locator system. More than 40% of the 750 detainees in the initial list were sent not out of the country but to other ICE facilities, the Herald found. Another 40% were still at the detention center. Alligator Alcatraz detainees often did not appear in ICE's locator system, the Herald found and the fate of the rest — around 150 detainees — is unclear. Some of them were likely still at Alligator Alcatraz but others may have been deported. The numbers in both data sets are snapshots in time, and fluctuate as detainees enter and leave the facility. On Tuesday, there were just shy of 400 detainees at the Everglades detention camp — far below the roughly 1,500 people the makeshift camp is able to hold. In late July, DeSantis said the federal government had deported about 100 people who were held at the detention camp and that 'hundreds' of others had been transferred to deportation hubs in other parts of the country. The state and federal governments have yet to say if any deportation flights have taken off directly from the site and to foreign soil. Attorneys have welcomed the transfers – which make it easier for them to access their clients and advocate on their behalf. At least two detainees were released on bond last week after they were moved elsewhere, according to their attorneys. One detainee trying to leave the country voluntarily had to be transferred to another facility to be deported. Fernando Eduardo Artese, 63, was one of the first detainees to arrive at Alligator Alcatraz. From the start, he wanted to leave the United States voluntarily, but the process to self-deport was not easy in the weeks he spent at the state-run site, his family said .It was only after he was transferred to the federal Krome immigration detention center in Miami that he was able to begin the process of voluntarily leaving the country. Once at Krome, Artese was deported in less than a week, his daughter, Carla Artese, told the Herald/Times. The Argentinian-Italian was sent to Italy. It's not clear whether the difference between Alligator Alcatraz's promoted and practical uses was intentional or accidental. The facility was built with near biblical speed, completed in only eight days, and from its earliest days, detainees complained of toilets that don't flush, bugs and leaky tents. Attorneys quickly flagged that they had no way to speak confidentially with their clients. A federal judge questioned the facility's operation at a hearing in July for a lawsuit related to detainees' legal access. 'A lot of it looked to me like … a new facility not having their act together or getting up and running in the right way,' U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II said last month in a court hearing. But critics of the facility say that the harsh conditions endured by detainees — and the rhetoric politicians have used to describe the site — are not by accident. DeSantis says reporting about terrible conditions has been inaccurate, but he's in no rush to dispel the narrative. 'Maybe it will have the intent or the effect of deterring people from going there,' the governor said. John Sandweg, the former acting director of ICE during the Obama administration, said the construction and location of the facility makes little sense. It's not near an immigration court or ICE's existing transportation infrastructure. But with backlogs in immigration courts presenting major roadblocks to the Trump administration's stated goal of deporting one million immigrants per year, Sandweg said he believes the purpose of the facility is to encourage undocumented immigrants – whether in custody or not – to bypass the immigration courts and voluntarily leave the country to avoid the possibility of being sent there. 'I think that the real goal of Alligator Alcatraz is to instill fear,' he said. Miami Herald reporter Siena Duncan contributed reporting.
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
‘Direct insult': Victim in Key Biscayne gymnastics coach case demands trial
Days after a plea agreement was struck in the case of a Key Biscayne coach accused of sexually abusing kids, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office may reverse course, according to a key witness who said the plea deal was not harsh enough on her abuser. The victim told prosecutors the agreement was a 'direct insult,' prompting the state to reconsider the plea, she told the Miami Herald Monday. The State Attorney's Office did not respond to the Herald's request for confirmation, but a text message obtained by the newspaper from a prosecutor to a second witness states that it is 'pulling the plea.' Ultimately, Alberto Milian, the judge in charge of the case in Miami-Dade circuit court, will decide whether or not to uphold the plea agreement or let the state attorney withdraw it at a hearing scheduled for Thursday. 'I am firmly and unequivocally opposed to any plea deal in this case,' the woman, now in her late 20s, wrote in an email shared with the Miami Herald. The email was addressed to Arvind Singh, one of the prosecutors in the state case against Olea. Olea, 40, has been charged with sexually assaulting girls a decade ago. He was facing six charges of sex crimes against a minor by a person with custodial authority against two of his former students, though two of those charges were dropped by the state attorney's office last week. His trial had been scheduled to start Monday, but with the plea agreement introduced last week, the trial was canceled. The two former students are now 28 and 31 years old and previously told the Herald and police they started being abused by their then-coach when they were 12 and 16. The key witness opposed to the plea, who is only identified in court records as 'A.E.', told the Herald that she was sexually abused by Olea from the age of 12 and into her teenage years over a decade ago. He had developed a 'brotherly' relationship with her, which turned into a sexual one. Her story was part of Key Biscayne's Dark Secret, a Herald investigation published last year that revealed her story and those of two other girls who also said they were abused. After the Herald published the story, those same three women went back to the police. Two of the women's stories resulted in six charges for sexual battery against a minor by a person with custodial authority. Olea was arrested less than a month later. The plea, 'reduces the lifelong impact of this crime to a number that lets a predator walk free while I remain sentenced to a lifetime of trauma,' the 28-year-old wrote in the email. Milian said last week in court that he would sign the agreement at a hearing on Thursday if Olea did not change his mind and decide to go to trial. Instead, the state is expected to argue that because the agreement has not yet been ratified, it should be able to withdraw the plea. Ultimately, that decision will be up to Milian. But it is a move that isn't a great look, attorneys say. 'The state is acting in bad faith,' said Mark Eiglarsh, a trial attorney and former prosecutor. 'If they extended an offer and the defense agreed to it, then it's just subject to a judge's approval.' 'The system would shut down if the prosecutor could simply renege on their agreements after extensive negotiations and them being ratified by the defense,' he said. But, Eiglarsh said, he understands why the prosecutors in this case would try to get Milian to allow them to take back the plea. Their responsibility is to the victims, he said. Singh, in response to A.E.'s email, wrote 'It is heartbreaking to hear a victim so frustrated and understandably upset.' Other prosecutors told the Herald Olea's plea agreement seemed more or less in line with other cases they have seen and understood why a prosecutor may have favored a plea over taking the case to trial. Maria Schneider, a former prosecutor for Broward County, said 12 years was a 'significant sentence,' and there were other factors to consider when taking a case to trial, including the unpredictability of jurors. She said ultimately the state's job is to protect the public and taking a case to trial would risk Olea walking free. 'Jurors are not always convinced beyond a reasonable doubt,' Schneider said. On plea agreements, Schneider said, a 'victim's wishes are not controlling,' but are 'certainly, to all prosecutors, very important.' The victim who spoke to the Herald said she did not feel that her wishes had been considered, and instead felt she had to give 'pep talks' to prosecutor Bronwyn Nayci, to get the case to trial. Olea had been charged with the six counts of sexual battery of a minor but two of those were dropped before the plea deal. When asked by a reporter, spokesperson Ed Griffith said that was due to 'legal issues' that would be 'fully explained once the case is actually closed.' Olea has two separate state cases against him. The two charges that were dropped are related to 'E.M.', who is now in her early thirties. She says Olea began sexually assaulting her when she was 16. In the plea agreement, the charges would be modified: four second-degree felonies for crimes against two victims, two of which involve sex with a minor. Jenny Rossman, a former sex crimes prosecutor who now works for a private firm, said that it did not surprise her that the charges were lowered, as it is often difficult to prove custodial authority in court. Both victims told the Herald and police that Olea would often pick them up from school, take them to practice, take them to his mother's house where he lived, and off the island of Key Biscayne for practice or to see a movie.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Haiti wants to hire private firm to collect border taxes. Not everyone is on board
Haiti's transitional government is brokering a deal to take control of its porous border with the Dominican Republic, which has become a gateway for illegal weapons, by giving a private firm control of security and tax collection. A Haitian government official aware of the discussions confirmed to the Miami Herald that negotiations are ongoing for border control and debt collection by restructuring customs and PoliFRONT, the specialized Haitian border police unit charged with securing the 243-mile borders with the Dominican Republic, the country's biggest trade partner. 'No contract has been signed,' said the official, disputing a Reuters story that quoted private security executive and Donald Trump supporter Erik Prince that he has signed a long-term agreement with the Haitian government. As part of the 10-year agreement, according to the story, Prince's company, Vectus Global, would design and carry out a program to tax goods imported across the border, which currently help funnel between $60 million to $70 million to gangs that control key transport routes. The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said he has not seen Vectus Global's name. However, another source said there are several companies, including Prince's, that are vying for the border contract. A spokesman for Vectus Global told the Herald the company has 'a year-long program to help the government defeat the gangs and a longer-term role advising the government on how to restore revenue collection capabilities once the situation stabilizes. We want to help the Haitians increase their capacity to defeat these terrorist groups, get their country back, and then reinstate essential services which have been missing for the past few years.' In addition to consulting on security issues, the firm provides a range of services, the company notes, adding that a task force operating out of the prime minister's office that is leading the response to gangs is using advice from Vectus. But some observers see a border contract as a throwback to a bygone colonial era. Others see it as a money grab in which the country is being mortgaged in the name of fighting criminal gangs. 'This is scandalous,' said Samuel Madistin, a leading human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate. 'The government that is here is provisional, corrupt and it represents the most mafia segment of the private sector. They do not have the legitimacy to engage the country in a long-term 10-year contract with a private firm in a plan of collecting taxes to reinforce security when they have never taken any forceful steps to reinforce the army, the national police to fight against gangs.' Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé did not respond to a request for comment. The former head of the transitional council, Fritz Alphonse Jean, said the Reuters article was the first he was hearing of any such arrangement. Laurent Saint-Cyr, who took over the reins of the presidential council last week, said he was ''not aware of the signing of such a contract.' The revelations about Prince's firm taking control of the only reliable revenue stream for the government comes on the heels of concerns over the influence the private sector exerts over the government, as members of the business community now control both the presidency of the council and the prime minister's office. Prince's entry and the Kenya mission On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department confirmed plans to support a proposal from United Nations chief António Guterres to back the efforts of the armed international mission that's been struggling to control the gang violence. However, observers worry that Prince's entrance into the fray will complicate support for the Kenya-led mission because of his team's use of weaponized drones to target Haitian gangs. There are also concerns that the presence of mercenaries in the gang fight could dissuade future efforts to scale up the current mission into a full-fledged U.N.-authorized peacekeeping force. 'While it is understandable that the Haitian government feels the needs to respond to an extreme situation with whatever alternatives are on the table, relying on a [private military contractor] for a long term plan -- particularly when the details are not being shared publicly- will certainly alarm Haitian and international observers because of the history of lack of accountability from this kind of operations,' said Diego Da Rin, Haiti analyst for the International Crisis Group. Da Rin said with funding for the Kenyan mission already uncertain, Haitian leaders might be betting that Prince will provide the support needed to at least gain some ground against the gangs. Controversial figure The founder of the controversial military security firm Blackwater, Prince arrived in Haiti earlier this year promising to help the country put down the with the help of former special forces soldiers and military contractors from the United States, Colombia and other nations. Haitian authorities have declined to provide details on the contract, which for one year carried a $50 million price tag, according to another government official. In addition to providing personnel, the arrangement called for the firm to provide helicopters and weaponized drones. So far, in the eight months that drones have been hitting areas of the capital, no major gang leaders have been captured or killed, although Haitian police have claimed that some gang members have died. The slaughter of Haitians and the destruction of private property by armed groups have not ceased. People familiar with Prince's arrival say he was introduced in Haiti by Reuven Bigio, the CEO of the GB Group, a firm founded by Gilbert Bigio, an uber rich Haitian businessman who was sanctioned by Canada in 2022 along with other prominent members of the economic elite. Among the companies' assets is the private Lafito port in Port-au-Prince, where private military are used to provide security. In pitching his services, Prince discussed wresting control of gangs to allow major highways to reopen. HIs services would be paid for through a revenue scheme in which his firm reportedly would get a percentage of the increase in collections. Not a new idea The plan to secure the border with an outside firm to increase customs revenue is not a novel idea. It was first raised by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Haiti Advisory Board in 2005 but quickly nixed after considerable pushback. Then Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe introduced it during the administration of President Michel Martelly, using an Israeli firm. Shortly after coming to power, President Jovenel Moïse broke the contract, which had already invested $10 million. Mark Hall, an American investment banker who worked in the Dominican Republic, has also tried to get support for a similar effort that involves installing 50 to 60 high tech surveillance towers along the border. It was expected to cost $134 million. Hall, like other proponents of the idea, argued that it is a win for Haiti, which loses an estimated $500 million annually from contraband and the lack of control at its borders. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has repeatedly raised concerns over the illicit trafficking of firearms and narcotics across the country's porous border, particularly in the southern departments of Haiti. In mid-April, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights voiced similar concerns, noting that a lack of border controls have helped facilitate the smuggling of firearms into the country. 'Poor provision of security at borders and an influx of small arms and light weapons into Haiti has facilitated a resurgence' in violence in recent years, the security firm Osprey said in a recent analysis. 'Large, relatively unpoliced areas of Haiti are also vulnerable to security and criminal threats due to instability and porous borders.' Solve the daily Crossword
