Longtime prosecutor resigns after judge tosses him from case, citing Perry Mason-type revelations

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Longtime prosecutor resigns after choose tosses…

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Longtime prosecutor resigns after choose tosses him from case, citing Perry Mason-type revelations

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 14, 2024, 10:09 am CDT

Longtime Miami-Dade County, Florida, prosecutor Michael Von Zamft has resigned after a choose disqualified him and a colleague from the resentencing of an alleged gang chief convicted of 4 murders.

Decide Andrea Ricker Wolfson of the eleventh Judicial Circuit Courtroom of Florida in Miami-Dade County stated newly found proof recommended that witness testimony had been manipulated within the prosecution of gang chief Corey Smith, and that jailed witnesses had been granted favors, together with conjugal visits, for his or her cooperation.

Wolfson additionally cited a recorded telephone name between Von Zamft and a jailed witness that may very well be considered as a “cryptic message” about eliminating an unreliable witness, though the choose didn’t settle for that interpretation.

The Related Press, the Miami Herald, Local10.com and Regulation.com have protection of Wolfson’s March 6 determination.

“On tv, Perry Mason, protection legal professional extraordinaire, all the time managed to seek out the smoking gun on the finish of each episode,” Wolfson wrote. “In actual life, this occurs very not often. It occurred right here.”

Wolfson tossed Von Zamft from the case, saying he had a “prosecutorial philosophy of successful in any respect prices.” She additionally disqualified a second prosecutor who “emphatically argued” that no unethical conduct had occurred, she wrote. However she rejected a request to disqualify your complete Miami-Dade state legal professional’s workplace.

Smith was being resentenced as a result of he was sentenced to dying in two of the murders primarily based on less-than-unanimous juror votes, a observe that was banned in a 2017 Florida legislation.

Wolfson cited proof supporting disqualification introduced in a a number of day listening to “relating to over 20 years of allegations of misconduct” within the case.

Wolfson stated the state’s therapy of discovery within the case “has been questionable all through the litigation course of.” A number of representations by Von Zamft relating to discovery “can finest be described as the continual motion of the aim line away from the protection group,” she stated.

She additionally cited proof of witness coordination.

Three cooperating witnesses had testified that that they had been taken to the Miami Police Division’s murder unit to coordinate testimony within the Smith case. A type of witnesses had first made the declare in a January 2023 affidavit, however he modified his story after assembly with two prosecution investigators allegedly despatched by Von Zamft.

Additional proof included a recorded August 2022 telephone name between Von Zamft and a co-defendant, Latravis Gallashaw, who turned a cooperating witness. Throughout the name, they mentioned issues with witnesses within the Smith case.

Gallashaw requested whether or not Von Zamft had thought-about “rehabilitating” an inmate named Jones. Von Zamft stated there had been an issue with Jones’ contradictory statements. Von Zamft stated he was attempting to rearrange a jail courtyard assembly between Gallashaw, Jones and an inmate who was a witness in one other case, however his request was turned down.

“However the gun didn’t give up smoking there,” Wolfson stated, carrying on her Perry Mason reference.

Within the name, Von Zamft complained that Tricia Geter, a cooperating witness and Smith’s former girlfriend, was unpredictable. She gave full and full testimony within the prior trial, nevertheless, he stated.

“If I name her and he or she refuses, then I’ll discover a option to make her unavailable, after which I can learn her complete testimony,” Von Zamft stated.

“You’ll wish to do this?” Gallashaw requested.

Von Zamft replied that he didn’t wish to do it.

“I’d moderately she testified and did job. However can I rely on it? No,” Von Zamft stated.

Wolfson stated the telephone name “completely and utterly corroborates Ms. Geter’s testimony that she acquired mad at Mr. Von Zamft in 2023 after he instructed her that if she was lifeless, he would merely learn her prior testimony into the document.”

“It is very important reiterate the context of the interplay between Mr. Von Zamft and Mr. Gallashaw,” Wolfson wrote. “Mr. Gallashaw is a convicted assassin in a case that includes witness elimination. Mr. Von Zamft, a extremely skilled lawyer, knew who he was speaking to. At finest, Mr. Von Zamft’s use of the phrases ‘make her unavailable’ is reckless contemplating the viewers.

“To be clear, this courtroom doesn’t imagine that Mr. Von Zamft was sending a cryptic message to Mr. Gallashaw to remove Ms. Geter. Nevertheless, affordable minds could attain a distinct conclusion primarily based on the totality of circumstances on this case.”

Geter instructed the Miami Herald that she fears for her life due to threatening messages that she has acquired. She realized of the telephone name about making her unavailable about two weeks in the past.

“Why would you inform him you don’t need me accessible?” Geter requested in a newspaper interview with the Miami Herald. “It’s unethical that this officer of the state legal professional’s workplace can be conspiring with a identified killer.”

Wolfson despatched a duplicate of her opinion to the Florida Bar. Von Zamft instructed the ABA Journal that as a result of the matter has been referred to the bar, his legal professional has instructed him to not remark.