Miami judge accused of windshield bashing resigns from bench

A Miami-Dade circuit judge is leaving the bench six months after she was accused of using a metal pipe to smash a man's windshield in the Florida Keys.

Victoria Brennan’s last day will be Dec. 31, according to her resignation letter.

Brennan, reached by the Miami Herald, declined to say why she was retiring from the bench, but said she was “looking forward to the future” and was proud of a long and distinguished career in public service.

“I think I was a very well respected judge by many,” Brennan said.

Brennan had been moved from the criminal division since the Miami Herald reported she failed to publicly disclose the investigation, spurring the Public Defender’s Office to ask that she be recused from a slew of pending cases.

Prosecutors ultimately decided not to pursue a misdemeanor case against Brennan.

On June 28, Brennan had gone to her Key Largo home, where she came across three of her teenage son’s pals drinking. She then got into a profanity-laced exchange while trying to kick them out, according to a police report.

Deputies said Brennan used a metal pipe to shatter the truck windshield of 20-year-old Victor Garcia. A few days later, a Key West judge signed an arrest warrant for criminal mischief and deputies called her chambers trying to arrange her surrender.

But with Brennan out of town on vacation, her defense lawyer got the truck's owner to agree not to prosecute in exchange for restitution. The probe was ultimately handed over to prosecutors in Lee County, who decided not to pursue a case.

Brennan, 54, was a prosecutor in Miami-Dade between 1989 and 2003, and later worked as an assistant general counsel for then-Gov. Jeb Bush. In 2006, she became a county judge, and was elevated to the circuit bench in 2011.

“Serving as a judge has been a very memorable experience, and I appreciate very much the fact that I had the opportunity to serve in this way,” Brennan wrote to Gov. Rick Scott in her resignation letter.

This story was originally published December 13, 2016 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Miami judge accused of windshield bashing resigns from bench."