Ron DeSantis may be plotting to unseat another Democratic prosecutor in Florida

Last summer, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis remote Hillsborough County State’s Attorney Andrew Warren, sparking controversy and a major lawsuit. Although DeSantis claimed that he removed Warren for an alleged failure to protect public safety, Warren says it was pure politics. “This has become part of the authoritarian playbook,” Warren recently told NBC News.

Now another Democratic prosecutor in the state believes DeSantis is after her.

Monique Worrell, state’s attorney for Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Orange and Osceola counties, said in a scathing April 28 letter that DeSantis “seeks to exploit his political agenda against me” and that she believes his office is trying to “build and justify a baseless case against a prosecutor that you simply disagree with politically.”

DeSantis’s office has not said publicly if he is seeking to remove Worrell, but his office said recent actions by state officials indicate they are working to build a case for his suspension.

Worrell said state law enforcement officials have been requesting data from his first two years in office, suggesting they are trying to select incidents to build a case for dismissal.

In an odd twist, some state officials don’t ask about specific cases, but instead essentially ask Worrell to build a case against herself. Late last month, state committee member Debbie Galvin asked Worrell’s office to provide examples of cases where justice was not served for victims of human trafficking. “She did not specify which cases she wanted. Apparently she wanted us to identify cases for her,” Keisha Mulfort, a spokeswoman for Worrell’s office, told HuffPost.

Galvin told an employee at Worrell’s office that he was supposed to provide the information to DeSantis and that he needed to have it by May 1.

“EM. Galvin’s efforts support the fact that there are no policies to justify my suspension, and the Governor’s team is conducting this witch hunt to establish a basis for the removal of another duly elected prosecutor,” Worrell wrote in an April 28 letter to Galvin “This request mirrors similar requests from local law enforcement officials who have requested data from my first two years in office. These requests are unprecedented.”

DeSantis’ office has also focused on a shooting in Pine Hills on February 22 that left three people dead, including a local journalist and a 9-year-old boy. DeSantis’s office concluded that the accused shooter, Keith Moses, a 19-year-old black man, was a threat to society and that Worrell’s office was negligent in not prosecuting him for a prior marijuana-related offense.

On March 10, Worrell announced that he would press charges against Moses. A grand jury indicted Moses on first-degree murder charges nearly a month later. He has pleaded not guilty.

When the shooting occurred, DeSantis immediately attacked Worrell.

“I know that the district attorney, the state attorney in Orlando thinks that people are not prosecuted and that’s the way that you somehow have better communities. That doesn’t work,” DeSantis said at a news conference in February.

Ryan Newman, DeSantis’ general counsel, demanded communication related to Moses from Worrell’s office. The letter outlined Moses’ legal history, citing charges including assault, robbery, “multiple instances of resisting an officer” and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with no intent to kill.

DeSantis’ team focused on a previous arrest that they say was not properly processed. Moses was arrested in November 2021 for possessing less than 20 grams of marijuana and was still on juvenile probation, according to a letter from DeSantis’ general counsel.

Someone threw a gun out of the car before the arrest, the sheriff’s office said, and deputies say they saw Moses throw it away, but the sheriff’s office did not initially send the gun for testing.

Worrell said his office did not file charges in that case against Moses because the evidence did not prove a crime occurred, especially without further evidence about the weapon.

DeSantis and other local officials used a “dog whistle” to attack his credibility as a prosecutor, he said.

“They used this as an opportunity to say that I am responsible and that it is my soft policies on crime that are responsible, but the argument had no validity,” Worrell told HuffPost.

“Everything is to fit this narrative that I am allowing violent criminals to walk the streets. I think it’s very clear that this is a current Republican talking point.”

Donna Patalano, a defense attorney and former general counsel in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, said DeSantis has used the system to his advantage to further his political agenda.

“Gov. DeSantis has manipulated a proceeding for his own political gain,” Patalano told HuffPost. “The fact that Florida does not respect the electorate in its own jurisdiction should concern the people who are considering him for higher office,” Patalano said.

Former Governor Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) followed up with a letter of his own to Worrell’s office saying, “In too many cities across America, we’ve seen soft crime policies sold to the public about lies that a lighter punishment…does more good than quick accountability.”

Scott blamed “radical” leftists for what he called a “failed philosophy.”

While Scott was governor, he removed Aramis Ayalaformer Orlando prosecutor, of 30 murder cases after Ayala announced he would not seek the death penalty in 2017.

In recent years, other conservatives have tried to move to remove other prosecutors seen as progressives. In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner faced an impeachment attempt by Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but his efforts failed.

The US House Judiciary Committee has recently aggressively pursued Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg since the indictment of former President Donald Trump on felony falsification of business records.

Worrell’s office released crime statistics Thursday covering the first quarter of this year.

“Our prosecutors had a 90% conviction rate in felony cases and a 77% conviction rate overall. Prosecutors obtained convictions in all 11 felony cases tried in Osceola County, resulting in a 100% conviction rate,” Worrell’s office said.

In addition, six homicide cases were tried, all of them with guilty sentences. Other major cases included sexual offences, drug trafficking, and violent crimes.

But Worrell also has a reform agenda. Last year, he introduced a 90-day plan Adult Civil Summons pilot program. The program would provide a civil citation in lieu of a misdemeanor criminal charge for crimes such as drug possession, misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct, retail theft and trespassing.

“We understand the injustices found in the criminal justice legal system. We challenge law enforcement on those things,” Worrell told HuffPost.

“This is just based on rhetoric and fear, because research shows that when you make people feel afraid, the pendulum swings in the other direction. And they will be able to continue the mass incarceration that has plagued this country for decades, if not centuries.”