They don’t like each other. So, what else is new in the race for Keys state attorney?
The Republican primary in the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office election is a contest between two old rivals who have never made an effort to hide their dislike for one another — and it doesn’t look like they’re going to start now.
“I’m not real happy with [Monroe County State Attorney] Dennis Ward,” said Mark Kohl, who led the Florida Keys prosecutor’s office for two terms from 2000 to 2008. “I’ve never really liked him in the first place.”
Kohl, 63, filed to run against Ward Wednesday. He’s been in semi-retirement since Ward defeated Catherine Vogel in 2016 —- four years after she beat Ward in a Democratic primary election.
Kohl, who used to be Vogel’s boss when he was state attorney, managed her office during her 2012-2016 term.
He said that other than wanting to defeat Ward, he’s running again because he wants to get back into the courtroom.
“Being a prosecutor has been my career,” Kohl, who began his law practice as a West Palm Beach assistant state attorney in the mid-1980s. “It’s what I enjoy doing.”
Ward, who worked under Kohl in the early 2000s and defeated him in 2008, jabbed at his old boss for his role as Vogel’s office manager, saying he’s not sure if he accomplished anything during that time, adding the computer system when he took over in 2016 was in shambles.
“I don’t know what he did. He had a TV in his office. Maybe he watched television all day,” Ward, 68, said Tuesday.
As the race stands now, whoever wins the August primary will face Key West attorney Donald Barrett, a Democrat, in the November general election.
Ward, who had a nearly 30-year career as a police officer before practicing law, is running on several accomplishments, including his record of convicting corrupt public officials during his first term.
The biggest fish were former schools superintendent Randy Acevedo and his wife, Monique Acevedo, who was also a high-ranking school system official at the time. They were convicted in 2009 for their part in a major financial scandal that rocked the district.
But Ward’s aggressiveness in the Acevedo case, as well as several other cases involving defendants connected to influential people in Key West, motivated local activists to organize the Southernmost City vote against him during the 2012 primary, when he was a Democrat.
The Acevedos, who lived in Key West, maintained wide support in their hometown throughout the investigation into the scandal, which concluded with Monique serving eight years in prison for stealing almost a half a million dollars from the school district, and Randy receiving three years’ probation and a $15,000 fine for covering up his now ex-wife’s theft.
Vogel, who was Randy Acevedo’s defense attorney during his public corruption trial, defeated Ward by almost 60 percent margins in most Key West precincts, nullifying his support in parts of the Upper Keys. She went on to defeat Kohl in the general election, a race that was very tame given the two are longtime professional and political allies, exemplified by Vogel hiring Kohl to manage her office after the election.
Ward is also proudly wearing criticism by his opponents that he is too tough on fisheries violations. Typically, those caught with undersized fish and lobster, or keeping too many fish, end up with fines. But, Ward’s office established baseline plea offers for violators that include jail time.
“It’s a major crime to me. We’re getting nickeled and dimed every day. After a period of time, that adds up,” he said.
Barrett told the Keys Weekly newspaper in November that many of the people aggressively prosecuted by Ward’s office are “tourists” who catch undersized fish “because they don’t know the rules.”
Kohl said Tuesday that Ward has gone “all out on marine violations,” which he said has been done at the expense of more serious crimes.
Ward, however, responded that his prosecutors can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” pointing to several high-profile violent crime convictions that led to judges handing down life sentences.
He said the criticism has become a talking point formed by “unhappy defense attorneys” who were used to getting their clients off with a slap on the wrist for knowingly breaking the law.
“Our lobster and fish are under assault by people who don’t live here. You need to respect the bag limits and size limits on our natural resources,” Ward said.
But Kohl expanded his criticism of Ward to include his ability and experience as an attorney. Kohl said his decades as a prosecutor make him more qualified to lead the State Attorney’s Office than Ward. He said Ward never handled a felony case in court as either a prosecutor or defense attorney.
“In my first four years as a prosecutor in the Upper Keys, I prosecuted more than 500 felonies a year,” he said.
Kohl also blasted Ward for what happened to one of his top prosecutors, Colleen Dunne, who was forced to resign in December after to admitting to a Florida Bar ethics violation connected to a 2009 attempted murder case. Dunne was accused and admitted to withholding discovery from defense attorneys in the case during a 2010 deposition. As part of the plea, she lost her law license for a year.
Kohl said the violation was the result of years of Dunne observing Ward, who he said has a history of skirting ethics rules.
“When your setting an example like that, it’s no surprise your attorneys are doing what they’re doing,” Kohl said. “She crossed over the line, and the Florida Bar obviously saw that. I believe in leadership from the top. It’s the top that sets the example.”
Ward countered that bad advice from her supervisor at the time, who was Barrett, led to her making the decision to temporarily withhold knowledge of a jailhouse phone call made by the defendant that Dunne planned to use as evidence to argue against an insanity defense. Ward said the call should not have been considered as evidence in the first place.
“Colleen’s problem was listening to Barrett about discovery on jail calls,” Ward said.
Barrett, however, said that he had left the State Attorney’s Office by the time of the deposition, and in a December interview leading up to the time when Dunne was forced to step down, he disputed the notion that jail calls weren’t regularly used as evidence by Keys prosecutors.
“At the time, the jail calls were routinely listened to by most, if not all, prosecutors in the office,” he said.
Barrett said Thursday that Ward should have taken responsibility for Dunne’s actions since she worked under him at the time of the deposition.
“Rather than accepting the ultimate responsibility for what happens in his office, Ward tries to pass the buck,” Barrett said.
As to not handling felonies personally during his career, Ward, who was a Miami Beach police officer from 1972 to 2001, said leads an office of qualified line prosecutors, who he advises on cases.
“I meet with prosecutors daily to discuss cases and to strategize,” he said. “I am an administrator, not a line prosecutor.”
If Ward wins reelection, he said he plans to continue vigorously prosecuting major crimes and wildlife violations, but he also wants to implement more programs aimed at giving people who commit non-violent offenses and those who want help with alcohol and drug abuse as second chance.
One such program is one his office has adopted where juveniles arrested for minor crimes are issued civil citations instead of being prosecuted.
“Hopefully, it sends them back in the right direction,” Ward said. “It’s been a very successful program.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 10:12 AM.
