Florida Keys spirits shop owner could face death for abuse charges, prosecutors say
A Monroe County grand jury this week indicted a Florida Keys spirits shop owner on child sexual abuse charges that possibly carry the death penalty.
Jeffrey Scott Kesling is accused of sexually battering a 3- and 7-year-old child over an almost two-year time period.
The grand jury indicted Kesling, 43, of two counts of sexual battery on a child under the age of 12, which is a capital felony under Florida law, and three counts of lewd and lascivious molestation, which caries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
'There are no words strong enough to describe the cruelty of these crimes. A 3-year-old and a 7-year-old — these are babies. What happened to them is monstrous,' Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward said in a statement Tuesday. 'The State of Florida allows the death penalty for a reason in cases like this, and if the facts warrant it, we will pursue it. We have a duty to protect our children and bring justice for what they've endured.'
Monroe County Sheriff's Office detectives began investigating abuse allegations against Kesling in March, the same month his wife filed a domestic violence injunction against him. Details about the children's relationship with Kesling have not been released by the courts, the sheriff's office or prosecutors.
With the sexual battery charges, Kesling is not eligible for bond, so he remains in county jail. A judge set his bond on the lewd and lascivious counts at $150,000 each.
'This isn't just criminal — it's evil. Anyone who sexually violates a 3-year-old or a 7-year-old has no place in our society,' Chief Assistant State Attorney Joseph Mansfield said in a statement. 'This case will be prosecuted aggressively. Our community needs to know that when it comes to protecting children, there is no room for compromise. No plea deals. No leniency. Only accountability.'
The alleged crimes happened between June 2023 and December 2024, according to prosecutors.
Kesling is owner of Keys' Meads in Key Largo, which sells and distills mead, a fermented honey alcoholic drink. The company's website indicates his business opened in 2017 and has grown from manufacturing meads to functioning as a distillery and vendor for popular Renaissance fairs throughout the state.
Kesling is represented by Coral Gables criminal defense attorney Jean-Michel D'Escoubet, who said he could not comment on the specifics of the allegations, but called his client in a statement, 'a long standing respected member of the community in the Florida Keys both personally and professionally.'
'He should continue to be treated with that respect and the presumption of innocence our Constitution provides all persons charged with a crime, even those for which he is currently charged, regardless of how distasteful they appear on their face,' D'Escoubet said.
Miami Herald staff writer Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Federal officials arrest four protesters of immigration raid in Omaha
A worker is escorted to a bus headed to a detention center after she was apprehended at Glenn Valley Foods of Omaha during largest Nebraska immigration raid since President Donald Trump took office. (Courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) OMAHA — Federal authorities on Friday announced the arrests Thursday of four protesters outside of an Omaha immigration raid conducted earlier this week, alleging that the four were 'aggressive' and captured on video damaging federal property and threatening to assault law officers in relation to the raid at Glenn Valley Foods. The statement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided no names. It said the protesters arrested are expected to face felony charges of 'assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating or interfering with a federal officer while engaged in the performance of their official duties, as well as damaging government property.' Video of a few people throwing rocks and others blocking law enforcement cars at the Tuesday raid site were widely circulated on social media. 'Many of these protesters claim to be fighting for justice, but instead they damaged property, threatened federal officers and agents and attempted to obstruct a lawful operation aimed at arresting individuals who exploited stolen identities to work illegally,' Todd Lyons, acting ICE Director, said in a statement. Federal immigration raid hits Omaha plant During the enforcement operation at Glenn Valley, immigration agents detained nearly 80 workers. It was the largest immigration enforcement operation in Nebraska since President Donald Trump took office with a pledge to carry out massive deportations. Of the workers detained, ICE has said some had active local warrants, prior DUI convictions or had been previously deported. The agency said in a statement that many may now face additional federal charges: fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents; assaulting a federal officer; resisting arrest; illegal reentry; and/or misuse of Social Security numbers. The investigation was conducted by ICE Homeland Security Investigations, with support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, and a fraud unit from the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles. 'Peaceful protest is a right protected under the Constitution, and our agents are proud to defend that right every day,' said Mark Zito, Special Agent in Charge of ICE HSI Kansas City, which covers Omaha. 'But threats, violence and property damage by criminal actors claiming some kind of vigilante justice will not be tolerated.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Atlantic
6 hours ago
- Atlantic
Handcuffing a U.S. Senator is a Warning
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Like knowing the names of lots of federal judges, widespread familiarity with specific theories of authoritarian rule is not generally a hallmark of a healthy society. But as the United States' vital signs get more dire, Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way's concept of 'competitive authoritarianism' feels unsettlingly relevant. The idea came to mind again when federal officers manhandled and then handcuffed Senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, yesterday as he tried to ask a question of Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, at a press conference in Los Angeles. Because it took place at a media event, the incident was recorded clearly on video, and it's shocking. Nearly as disturbing as the footage is the fact that even though the incident is on tape, the Trump administration attempted to lie baldly about what happened. Officials said Padilla never identified himself as a senator and that security personnel thought he was an attacker; video shows him audibly identifying himself and wearing a U.S. Senate shirt. They said he lunged at Noem; video shows nothing of the sort. (If only Noem's security detail had been so vigilant when her purse was stolen in April.) The most that can be said is that Padilla's question disrupted Noem's spiel at the press conference. According to the senator's explanation, the Department of Homeland Security had refused to adequately answer questions from his office for weeks, and when he realized that Noem was holding a press conference at the same federal building where he was receiving a briefing, he decided to attend. He was not arrested, and later spoke with Noem. As clips of the moment spread, Democrats erupted in outrage, and so did Republicans—in a sense. Speaker Mike Johnson called on the Senate to censure Padilla, though for what was unclear. Daring to challenge a Trump-administration official? That's where competitive authoritarianism comes in. Levitsky explained the idea in an Atlantic essay in February: Whereas traditional authoritarians aim for total control, competitive authoritarians maintain the trappings of democracy, such as an opposition party. They just make it nearly impossible for the opposition to win. 'Unlike in a full-scale dictatorship, in competitive-authoritarian regimes, opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they often seriously vie for power,' he wrote. 'Elections may be fiercely contested. But incumbents deploy the machinery of government to punish, harass, co-opt, or sideline their opponents.' One advantage of this model, from the standpoint of power, is that it doesn't require trashing the Constitution. Instead, the ruler burrows into and subverts existing institutions. The Padilla incident should be understood as more than just an overheated encounter between partisan opponents; it's part of a pattern of harassment of Democrats. On Tuesday, Representative LaMonica McIver was indicted on three counts of forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law-enforcement officers for an incident last month when she and other Democrats visited an ICE facility in New Jersey. A scrum occurred when officers arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, dropped a charge against him and received a fierce scolding from a judge, but she brought charges against McIver, despite dubious evidence in videos of the event. McIver has said that she will plead not guilty. Late last month, DHS officers handcuffed a staffer for Representative Jerry Nadler, a prominent Democrat—ostensibly because the staffer had objected to officers entering the office, and because DHS was concerned (ironically) for the staff's safety. Padilla's detention comes amid protests in California and elsewhere over ICE raids. Noem told Fox News yesterday, 'I'm so sick of the politics … This is literally people's lives.' DHS accused Padilla of 'disrespectful political theater.' Given that the department is currently engaged in an elaborate production of its own, featuring draconian raids and unprecedented military deployments, Noem deserves some kind of award for lack of self-awareness. The Trump administration has embarked on a needless, inappropriate, and, according to one federal judge, illegal use of the National Guard. Senator Josh Hawley, a Trump ally, sent a letter earlier this week that seems to be an attempt to intimidate groups involved in the Los Angeles protests. Trump has also threatened further military deployments in other cities. 'When citizens must think twice about criticizing or opposing the government because they could credibly face government retribution, they no longer live in a full democracy,' Levitsky, Way, and the political scientist Daniel Ziblatt wrote in The New York Times last month. That may not yet be the case, but the path is too clear and too short for comfort. When Levitsky and Way first developed the concept of competitive authoritarianism, at the start of the century, they were looking at countries such as Slobodan Milošević's Serbia, Vladimir Putin's Russia, and Alberto Fujimori's Peru. The bad news is that a framework developed to describe poor, repressive regimes has now become useful for understanding the United States, as Levitsky wrote in his Atlantic essay. The good news is that more than two decades of study have provided some lessons on how to resist the danger. 'Civil society must act collectively,' the political scientists wrote in the Times, identifying a common interest among corporate leaders, law firms, universities, leaders in both parties, and the press. 'When organizations work together and commit to a collective defense of democratic principles, they share the costs of defiance. The government cannot attack everyone all at once. When the costs of defiance are shared, they become easier for individuals to bear.' Seen from this point of view, peaceful protests in Los Angeles and elsewhere are an important start (though violence undermines the cause). Although Democratic members of Congress shouldn't have needed to see one of their colleagues manhandled to get angry, their outrage is appropriate. So is the response of levelheaded Republicans such as Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who watched a clip of the detention and said, 'It's horrible. It is shocking at every level. It's not the America I know.' But unless critics of Trump's power grab can work together and find effective ways of resisting, they'll be consigning themselves to a permanent existence as nothing more than a nominal opposition—never quite extinguished, but not relevant either.
Miami Herald
6 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Families, human rights lawyer visit El Salvador, seek to visit imprisoned Venezuelans
As a kid in rural Venezuela, Widmer Agelviz Sanguino would be awakened in the middle of the night by the screeches of nearby owls. Those frightful sounds left a lasting impression. So, when he became older, he got a tattoo on one of his arms: an owl, a clock, and a bouquet of roses. The owl and the clock were symbols of overcoming personal fears, while the roses were a homage to his paternal grandmother, who had a beautiful rose garden, his aunt Lisbeth Sanguino told the Miami Herald. 'He wanted to record on his skin his victory over his fears and his love for his paternal grandmother,' she said. Now, those symbols of personal victory have become a fearsome nightmare of their own. The tattoos were used by U.S. officials to link him to the violent gang Tren de Aragua. Agelviz Sanguino is one of more than 230 Venezuelans sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, subjected to expedited deportations without being given a chance to argue their cases in court. As part of a small mission of family members who accompanied a Venezuelan human rights lawyer to demand their loved ones' release from the Salvadoran prison this week, Lisbeth Sanguino said that while the tattoos have been claimed to be associated with Tren de Aragua, the truth is that her nephew has no gang affiliation and has never been involved in any type of crime. His case, she argued, is yet another example of the cavalier way in which those sent to El Salvador were selected—without any real evidence that they had done anything wrong other than trying to seek refuge in the United States. Invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the Trump administration deported the group of Venezuelans in March, accusing them of being criminals or members of the feared Tren de Aragua gang. They were sent to El Salvador and incarcerated at the CECOT maximum-security prison. In a brief telephone interview, human rights advocate and lawyer Walter Márquez said the Venezuelans sent to El Salvador have fallen into a kind of black hole, leaving family members without news of their whereabouts or the conditions they are in. 'El Salvador is serving as a human warehouse for these Venezuelans, who have fallen victim to an attempt to criminalize them as members of the Tren de Aragua solely because of the tattoos they might have—without a prior judicial conviction in the United States establishing that they are criminals,' Márquez said. 'This is a grave act of injustice being committed against individuals just because they have a tattoo,' said Márquez, who heads the Venezuelan human rights NGO El Amparo Internacional. 'We respect El Salvador's domestic laws to combat gangs, but we Venezuelans are not gang members; we are hard working people fleeing a political crisis and a dictatorship in our country.' Márquez, who led the mission, said that they visited El Salvador to document and denounce the situation of a group of Venezuelan citizens who, he claims, were illegally deported from the United States and are currently imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the country's maximum-security prison. During his visit, Márquez submitted a formal request to the Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman's Office (PDDH), seeking permission to visit the detainees, assess their health conditions, communicate with them, and obtain information about any legal proceedings they may be facing. 'We came to El Salvador to submit this request and document the situation of the Venezuelans who were deported from the United States and are now imprisoned in El Salvador,' Márquez said. 'We made the requests verbally and later confirmed them in writing. But they take their time. If necessary, we'll come back. For now, at least, we've filed the request. It's up to the Salvadoran State to respond,' he added. Márquez noted that several of the detainees were still involved in ongoing proceedings before U.S. immigration courts at the time of their deportation. In some cases, he claims, there were explicit court orders for their deportation to Venezuela, but they were instead sent to El Salvador—a move he described as a violation of due process. 'We are not only advocating for all those affected, but we have specifically filed a request on behalf of nine Venezuelans whom we represent legally,' he explained. Additionally, Márquez reported that on Thursday his delegation submitted a formal request to the Apostolic Nunciature in El Salvador, asking for the intervention of Pope Leo and citing the pontiff's commitment to migrant rights. 'He has said that Jesus was a migrant, and that's why we believe the Holy See can play an important role in this case,' he said. As of now, neither the government of El Salvador nor the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office has issued a public statement regarding Márquez's request. Márquez said the retention of the deported Venezuelans in the maximum security prision is unjust and illegal given that none of them have broken any laws in El Salvador or even in the United States, aside from having an irregular immigration status. He added that they would seek to 'exhaust all domestic remedies under El Salvador's law' and expressed hope that 'due process will be respected'; otherwise, they could 'resort to international bodies.' Since at least 2023, U.S. officials began targeting Venezuelans with tattoos, alleging their affiliation with Tren de Aragua based on the unsubstantiated assumption that the gang identifies itself through tattoos, according to court records. Upon taking office on January 20, the Trump administration initiated a broad campaign of deportations and immigrant targeting. This included classifying Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization and utilizing the Alien Enemies Act to expel alleged members from the U.S. However, experts contend that this approach is flawed because, unlike other Latin American gangs, members of Tren de Aragua—which originated in a notorious prison in Venezuela's Aragua state—do not typically use tattoos for identification. Trump's crackdown on suspected gang members comes amid reports that the Nicolás Maduro regime has been actively enabling Tren de Aragua's expansion. The gang, now Venezuela's most powerful transnational criminal organization, is allegedly being used in a campaign to destabilize neighboring countries and the United States. A January 2025 FBI memo describes a coordinated strategy by the Venezuelan regime to release violent criminals, facilitate their migration abroad, and deploy them as unofficial enforcers—not only across Latin America, but increasingly in U.S. cities. The memo was submitted by the Trump administration on Thursday to a federal judge in Texas, who is overseeing one of a growing number of lawsuits challenging the government's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members to El Salvador's notorious mega-prison.
