By Nicholas Dorsten, Esq.
From the Times online site, a warrant round up in Tampa nabs a bunch of wanted suspects...
TAMPA — Thousands of Tampa crime suspects live freely despite outstanding arrest warrants against them. For months, years — sometimes decades — they elude police, wanted for crimes as terrible as murder.
And the Mayor wants that to end.
On Tuesday, Tampa police launched what they say is the biggest warrant roundup in the department's history.
With nearly 6,000 outstanding warrants on the list, the police department's first action was to execute 459 violent felony warrants, including eight for murder.
By late afternoon, police had arrested 33 people. Another 39 warrants were cleared because the suspects are either dead or in prison. The roundup continues through Friday. Meanwhile, the warrants are for a variety of crimes, from grand theft to drug trafficking to murder.
At dawn, officers participating in the operation gathered in a Sulphur Springs parking lot. They donned tactical vests, aware of the danger they faced. Two of the recent fatal police shootings in the bay area happened during warrant arrests.
"These (wanted) individuals have nothing to lose," the police Chief said. "They certainly don't want to go back to jail."
But one question lingered: Why are violent felons — murder suspects, especially — not already behind bars? Aren't they priority cases?
It is noted that the 459 outstanding felony warrants — some that date to the 1970s — make up less than 1 percent of the Tampa police's yearly arrests. It's a small fraction that gets away.
The outstanding warrants don't exist for lack of trying, said a police spokeswoman. Police often spend weeks visiting various addresses where a subject is known to stay.
Sometimes the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force also gets involved right away, especially if the suspect is in another county or state.
When police efforts fail, an officer sends the suspect's information to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, which has a warrants division with 12 detectives who work exclusively on tracking down the wanted.
They scour databases to find addresses associated with the subject.
Then they interview neighbors, family and friends, picking up clues.
"It's hard to run forever," said a sheriff's Master Detective, who works in the division.
Though some of the cases are decades old, he said they're never considered "cold." Detectives pick up old cases routinely.
The roundup is helpful, he said, because it offers a brief spike in manpower, which nets bigger results.
Law enforcement does these types of roundups routinely, but Tampa police say this is their largest.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a criminal charge or grand theft? Then contact the Tampa Bay area criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Tampa Bay area criminal defense lawyers please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Welcome to the blog of a Clearwater-based Tampa bay area criminal defense attorney. Visit our website at www.BlakeDorstenLaw.com or call us at 727-286-6141 for all your legal needs. Our office is located across from the 49th street criminal courthouse, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104, Clearwater 33762.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Drud addiction leads to Robbery?
By Nick Dorsten, Esq.
In going over an article in the St. Pete Times website, it really stands out as it shows the despair that a severe drug addiction can cause...
When the pawnshop refused to take the computer because it was stolen, the defendant panicked. She needed money. She needed a fix. The suspect, 24, was desperate for her next oxycodone pill.
So desperate, that she robbed a bank Monday afternoon with her 3-year-old son in tow.
The woman saw a Regions Bank on State Road 52 in Hudson and pulled over. She left her son in the car. She stepped inside the bank and wrote her message at the withdrawal slips counter.
"I don't even remember what it said. It's not a blur, it's a blank," Lopez said Tuesday behind a glass window in jail. "This is the biggest mistake I've ever made in my entire life. When I walked in, I didn't think I was going to do it, but then something, I don't know — it's not like I planned it or anything."
The woman gave the note to the teller. That's when the manager told her that her son was standing at the bank's window. The suspect went outside, scooped him up, grabbed the money and left.
Scared and crying, she proceeded to call her sister from the road.
"I just robbed a bank. I don't know why," the defendant recalled sobbing to her sister. Fresh tears welled as she remembered the call.
Her sister begged her to bring the boy to her house. The suspect took him there, gave him a kiss and said "I'll see you later."
A few minutes later, a Pasco deputy pulled the suspect over in the silver Chrysler minivan matching the description of the bank robber's vehicle. She called her husband, a truck driver who is on the road for weeks at a time.
"Baby, I just robbed a bank," she told him. "I'm about to be pulled over."
At first, he thought it was a joke. Then he realized the seriousness of the situation: "They're going to take the kids," he told her.
Now her son and two other children — a 17-month-old son and a newborn daughter — are staying with the suspect's mother, who is shocked by what happened.
The defendant said her family was in the dark as she battled addiction for the past few years. She had been prescribed pills for severe back pain, but when the medication ran out, she bought more pills anywhere she could.
With her husband on the road so often, she was raising their young children largely on her own in Tampa. She struggled. The susoect claimed the oxycodone helped her cope. She would wait until the children were asleep to take a pill. She said it was the only way to keep from feeling sick.
"I'm ashamed of it. I knew what it could do to my life. I didn't want anyone to see — especially my children," she said.
Yet the suspect said she wanted to get clean. She drove to her mother's west Pasco home Sunday night intending to start that process. But come Monday morning she again needed more prescription drugs.
"If you have a problem with oxy, get off of them before it's too late," she said Tuesday. "If you come across them and don't know what they are, don't experiment with them because it's not worth it."
The suspect was charged with robbery, child neglect and burglary of a residence for the stolen laptop computer. She remained Tuesday in the Land O'Lakes jail in lieu of a $22,000 bail.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a drug charge, burglary or violent crime? Then contact the Clearwater criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Clearwater criminal defense lawyers, please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
In going over an article in the St. Pete Times website, it really stands out as it shows the despair that a severe drug addiction can cause...
When the pawnshop refused to take the computer because it was stolen, the defendant panicked. She needed money. She needed a fix. The suspect, 24, was desperate for her next oxycodone pill.
So desperate, that she robbed a bank Monday afternoon with her 3-year-old son in tow.
The woman saw a Regions Bank on State Road 52 in Hudson and pulled over. She left her son in the car. She stepped inside the bank and wrote her message at the withdrawal slips counter.
"I don't even remember what it said. It's not a blur, it's a blank," Lopez said Tuesday behind a glass window in jail. "This is the biggest mistake I've ever made in my entire life. When I walked in, I didn't think I was going to do it, but then something, I don't know — it's not like I planned it or anything."
The woman gave the note to the teller. That's when the manager told her that her son was standing at the bank's window. The suspect went outside, scooped him up, grabbed the money and left.
Scared and crying, she proceeded to call her sister from the road.
"I just robbed a bank. I don't know why," the defendant recalled sobbing to her sister. Fresh tears welled as she remembered the call.
Her sister begged her to bring the boy to her house. The suspect took him there, gave him a kiss and said "I'll see you later."
A few minutes later, a Pasco deputy pulled the suspect over in the silver Chrysler minivan matching the description of the bank robber's vehicle. She called her husband, a truck driver who is on the road for weeks at a time.
"Baby, I just robbed a bank," she told him. "I'm about to be pulled over."
At first, he thought it was a joke. Then he realized the seriousness of the situation: "They're going to take the kids," he told her.
Now her son and two other children — a 17-month-old son and a newborn daughter — are staying with the suspect's mother, who is shocked by what happened.
The defendant said her family was in the dark as she battled addiction for the past few years. She had been prescribed pills for severe back pain, but when the medication ran out, she bought more pills anywhere she could.
With her husband on the road so often, she was raising their young children largely on her own in Tampa. She struggled. The susoect claimed the oxycodone helped her cope. She would wait until the children were asleep to take a pill. She said it was the only way to keep from feeling sick.
"I'm ashamed of it. I knew what it could do to my life. I didn't want anyone to see — especially my children," she said.
Yet the suspect said she wanted to get clean. She drove to her mother's west Pasco home Sunday night intending to start that process. But come Monday morning she again needed more prescription drugs.
"If you have a problem with oxy, get off of them before it's too late," she said Tuesday. "If you come across them and don't know what they are, don't experiment with them because it's not worth it."
The suspect was charged with robbery, child neglect and burglary of a residence for the stolen laptop computer. She remained Tuesday in the Land O'Lakes jail in lieu of a $22,000 bail.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a drug charge, burglary or violent crime? Then contact the Clearwater criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Clearwater criminal defense lawyers, please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Juveniles put crime on facebook
By Nick Dorsten, Esq.
Originally written about on the tcpalm news site, this tells of an interesting trend of younger people putting evidence of their crimes on facebook and other social media sites...
In an example of the increasingly voyeuristic behavior people are exhibiting on social media web sites, a pair of 15-year-old boys were arrested because of a video one of them allegedly posted on Facebook showing his friend beating another teenager unconscious.
The 15-year old victim of the beating did not tell his parents or go to the hospital, police say. Rather, police were alerted to the battery and ultimately made the arrests acting off a tip from a witness who saw the video on Facebook.
Police arrested the two juvenile defendants, both 15. They appeared before a juvenile court judge Thursday at the Justice Center and were ordered held at the Juvenile Detention Center for 21 days.
The first juvenile defendant was charged with aggravated battery, resisting without violence and solicitation of gang activity.
The second juvenile suspect was charged with accessory after the fact and resisting arrest without violence.
“They were defiant; no remorse,” said a Palm Bay police Officer of the teens’ demeanor hours after their arrest.
“We believe that they posted the video to promote their gang activities. The victim just made a comment about them belonging to a gang, but it was nothing that deserved this type of retaliation. We’re also looking into whether there may be other videos.”
The second juvenile defendant videotaped the battery and it was later posted on the other teen's personal Facebook profile page, police said. The incident happened Tuesday, but only surfaced Wednesday after a concerned resident alerted Palm Bay police.
The video shows the first juvenile suspect delivering several successive kicks to the victim’s head in front of onlookers, at one point stomping on the boy’s head as he lay on the ground. A girl’s voice captured on the video is heard saying, “Oh my God,” repeatedly while the attack continues.
“(The victim) didn’t go to the hospital. In fact, he didn’t even tell his family,” the Officer said.
From the video, officers with the department’s Youth Services were able to identify several witnesses to the attack, all who attend a nearby high school. The fight reportedly happened on Grandeur Road. The teen's family members later removed the video from his Facebook page, police said.
Law enforcement officials and other experts say the video is the latest example of boldly posted videos, texts or photographs that depict illegal or illicit activity. In 2007, a video of a 12-year-old Brevard County girl being beaten by peers was posted online. Across the nation, fights between teens are being captured on cell phones or other mobile devices and posted on social media sites within minutes.
A Melbourne psychologist and parenting expert said similar episodes are part of a wider, “voyeuristic” trend in which teens use social media to share information about their lives.
“They feel it’s something really cool and they want to share it with their friends,” “They’re so desensitized about posting rather than someone saying that this is something wrong.”
The victim, whose injuries were described as not serious by police, did not want to come forward, primarily out of fear. Police said the incident began when the victim questioned one of the teens about involvement in a gang called “3-2-1,” a named borrowed from Brevard County’s area code.
The first juvenile later told police that he had formed the “3-2-1 Boyz or 3-2-1 Crew ” gang and wanted to “beat his .¤.¤.” because of derogatory remarks about the group. Police said they tracked the teen to his home on Grandeur Road. The teen ran inside and refused to answer the door for at least 20 minutes before his uncle arrived and ordered him to leave the home, according to police reports.
In recent years, Palm Bay police have tackled other gang-related groups, including the homegrown, Melbourne-based Coldside Posse, but said 3-2-1 is a small, loose-knit group of friends. The Officer said the 3-2-1 group was recently formed and was made up of about five or six people.
The teens were scheduled for a June 16 trial in juvenile court and face one to six years in juvenile detention. The state attorney’s office will review the case to determine whether to charge one or both teens as adults. A conviction as an adult on aggravated battery charges carries a penalty of up to 15 years in state prison.
Have you or someone you loved been arrested for a battery or a juvenile offense? Then contact the law offices of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. to speak with an experienced Pinellas criminal defense lawyer now!
Our office is located at 4707 140th ave. N, Suite 107, Clearwater, FL 33762, across from the criminal courthouse and minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg. You can contact your St. Petersburg criminal defense attorney by phone at 727.286.6141 or online at info@BlakeDorstenLaw.com.
Originally written about on the tcpalm news site, this tells of an interesting trend of younger people putting evidence of their crimes on facebook and other social media sites...
In an example of the increasingly voyeuristic behavior people are exhibiting on social media web sites, a pair of 15-year-old boys were arrested because of a video one of them allegedly posted on Facebook showing his friend beating another teenager unconscious.
The 15-year old victim of the beating did not tell his parents or go to the hospital, police say. Rather, police were alerted to the battery and ultimately made the arrests acting off a tip from a witness who saw the video on Facebook.
Police arrested the two juvenile defendants, both 15. They appeared before a juvenile court judge Thursday at the Justice Center and were ordered held at the Juvenile Detention Center for 21 days.
The first juvenile defendant was charged with aggravated battery, resisting without violence and solicitation of gang activity.
The second juvenile suspect was charged with accessory after the fact and resisting arrest without violence.
“They were defiant; no remorse,” said a Palm Bay police Officer of the teens’ demeanor hours after their arrest.
“We believe that they posted the video to promote their gang activities. The victim just made a comment about them belonging to a gang, but it was nothing that deserved this type of retaliation. We’re also looking into whether there may be other videos.”
The second juvenile defendant videotaped the battery and it was later posted on the other teen's personal Facebook profile page, police said. The incident happened Tuesday, but only surfaced Wednesday after a concerned resident alerted Palm Bay police.
The video shows the first juvenile suspect delivering several successive kicks to the victim’s head in front of onlookers, at one point stomping on the boy’s head as he lay on the ground. A girl’s voice captured on the video is heard saying, “Oh my God,” repeatedly while the attack continues.
“(The victim) didn’t go to the hospital. In fact, he didn’t even tell his family,” the Officer said.
From the video, officers with the department’s Youth Services were able to identify several witnesses to the attack, all who attend a nearby high school. The fight reportedly happened on Grandeur Road. The teen's family members later removed the video from his Facebook page, police said.
Law enforcement officials and other experts say the video is the latest example of boldly posted videos, texts or photographs that depict illegal or illicit activity. In 2007, a video of a 12-year-old Brevard County girl being beaten by peers was posted online. Across the nation, fights between teens are being captured on cell phones or other mobile devices and posted on social media sites within minutes.
A Melbourne psychologist and parenting expert said similar episodes are part of a wider, “voyeuristic” trend in which teens use social media to share information about their lives.
“They feel it’s something really cool and they want to share it with their friends,” “They’re so desensitized about posting rather than someone saying that this is something wrong.”
The victim, whose injuries were described as not serious by police, did not want to come forward, primarily out of fear. Police said the incident began when the victim questioned one of the teens about involvement in a gang called “3-2-1,” a named borrowed from Brevard County’s area code.
The first juvenile later told police that he had formed the “3-2-1 Boyz or 3-2-1 Crew ” gang and wanted to “beat his .¤.¤.” because of derogatory remarks about the group. Police said they tracked the teen to his home on Grandeur Road. The teen ran inside and refused to answer the door for at least 20 minutes before his uncle arrived and ordered him to leave the home, according to police reports.
In recent years, Palm Bay police have tackled other gang-related groups, including the homegrown, Melbourne-based Coldside Posse, but said 3-2-1 is a small, loose-knit group of friends. The Officer said the 3-2-1 group was recently formed and was made up of about five or six people.
The teens were scheduled for a June 16 trial in juvenile court and face one to six years in juvenile detention. The state attorney’s office will review the case to determine whether to charge one or both teens as adults. A conviction as an adult on aggravated battery charges carries a penalty of up to 15 years in state prison.
Have you or someone you loved been arrested for a battery or a juvenile offense? Then contact the law offices of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. to speak with an experienced Pinellas criminal defense lawyer now!
Our office is located at 4707 140th ave. N, Suite 107, Clearwater, FL 33762, across from the criminal courthouse and minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg. You can contact your St. Petersburg criminal defense attorney by phone at 727.286.6141 or online at info@BlakeDorstenLaw.com.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - St. Petersburg hotel drug busts
By Nicholas Dorsten, Esq.
From the Times online site,two local hotels are in trouble...
ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A pair of troubled U.S. 19 motels were targeted in a three-month drug sting that resulted Thursday in arrest warrants for 18 people, police said.
The arrests took place at the Mosley Motel, 401 34th St. N, and the Economy Inn Stadium Motel, also located in St. Petersburg. The police said the suspects sold crack cocaine, marijuana and prescription pills there, and that after many neighborhood complaints they began the investigation.
Police said both motels will now be reviewed by the city's nuisance abatement board, a legal arm of the police department, to determine if the motel owners face penalties because of the drug activity. Two years ago, the nearby Economy Inn Express, whose owner also runs the Mosley, came under the abatement board's review.
Arrested in Thursday's bust and charged with various sale and possession drug charges were the following St. Petersburg residents: A woman, 54; a man, 20; a juvenile Defendant, 16; a woman, 33; a man, 39; and another male, 31.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a possession of controlled substance or drug trafficking? Then contact the St. Petersburg criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced St. Petersburg criminal defense lawyers please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
From the Times online site,two local hotels are in trouble...
ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A pair of troubled U.S. 19 motels were targeted in a three-month drug sting that resulted Thursday in arrest warrants for 18 people, police said.
The arrests took place at the Mosley Motel, 401 34th St. N, and the Economy Inn Stadium Motel, also located in St. Petersburg. The police said the suspects sold crack cocaine, marijuana and prescription pills there, and that after many neighborhood complaints they began the investigation.
Police said both motels will now be reviewed by the city's nuisance abatement board, a legal arm of the police department, to determine if the motel owners face penalties because of the drug activity. Two years ago, the nearby Economy Inn Express, whose owner also runs the Mosley, came under the abatement board's review.
Arrested in Thursday's bust and charged with various sale and possession drug charges were the following St. Petersburg residents: A woman, 54; a man, 20; a juvenile Defendant, 16; a woman, 33; a man, 39; and another male, 31.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a possession of controlled substance or drug trafficking? Then contact the St. Petersburg criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced St. Petersburg criminal defense lawyers please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Cop of the year gets busted!
By Nick Dorsten, Esq.
In Boynton Beach, a police officer of the year gets arrested for selling drugs!
Once considered a role model by his peers and named “Officer of the Year” in 2010, a Boynton Beach police officer has been charged with conspiring to sell more than 500 grams of methamphetamines between June 2009 and March 2011.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration announced the indictment Tuesday against the cop who joined the Boynton Beach police department in 2007. He also taught in the department’s Teen Police Academy, according to the Palm Beach Post.
The officer received the department’s highest honor last year for, among other things, using CPR to save a 2-year old girl who almost drowned in the family’s pool and helping to identify a man suspected of shooting two street preachers.
In a statement, the Chief said an internal affairs investigation into allegations against the officer is ongoing.
“The Boynton Beach Department vigorously polices itself, and this case is an example of how law enforcement roots out corruption from within its own ranks.”
The disgraced officer faces a potential life sentence if convicted. This goes to show you that ANYONE can fall to the temptation of easy money through selling drugs...
Have you been arrested on prescription pill or drug trafficking charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com
In Boynton Beach, a police officer of the year gets arrested for selling drugs!
Once considered a role model by his peers and named “Officer of the Year” in 2010, a Boynton Beach police officer has been charged with conspiring to sell more than 500 grams of methamphetamines between June 2009 and March 2011.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration announced the indictment Tuesday against the cop who joined the Boynton Beach police department in 2007. He also taught in the department’s Teen Police Academy, according to the Palm Beach Post.
The officer received the department’s highest honor last year for, among other things, using CPR to save a 2-year old girl who almost drowned in the family’s pool and helping to identify a man suspected of shooting two street preachers.
In a statement, the Chief said an internal affairs investigation into allegations against the officer is ongoing.
“The Boynton Beach Department vigorously polices itself, and this case is an example of how law enforcement roots out corruption from within its own ranks.”
The disgraced officer faces a potential life sentence if convicted. This goes to show you that ANYONE can fall to the temptation of easy money through selling drugs...
Have you been arrested on prescription pill or drug trafficking charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Pill mill ruling...
By Nicholas Dorsten, Esq.
Another story about "pill mills", this one having to do with a Judge's ruling. You may remember these defendant's from a previous blog post...
TAMPA —A Tampa judge will now rule on whether to dismiss a case against the owners and doctor at a pain clinic that prosecutors describe as a pill mill, one where prescription drugs like oxycodone get illegally prescribed...
The Judge would not say when she expects to rule on the defendants' motion to dismiss the charges.
The defendants include the 1st Medical Group clinic's married co-owners and its doctor. All three face 82 counts including drug trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy. An office manager and former employee face a less number of charges.
The defendants were also arraigned,each one pleading innocent.
Police accuse the now-closed clinic on Dale Mabry Highway of prescribing more than 2.4 million addictive pain pills in seven months. Attorneys for the defendants say the state has failed to say how the clinic's business was criminal given the doctor is properly licensed.
Have you been arrested on prescription pill or trafficking in oxycodone charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com
Another story about "pill mills", this one having to do with a Judge's ruling. You may remember these defendant's from a previous blog post...
TAMPA —A Tampa judge will now rule on whether to dismiss a case against the owners and doctor at a pain clinic that prosecutors describe as a pill mill, one where prescription drugs like oxycodone get illegally prescribed...
The Judge would not say when she expects to rule on the defendants' motion to dismiss the charges.
The defendants include the 1st Medical Group clinic's married co-owners and its doctor. All three face 82 counts including drug trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy. An office manager and former employee face a less number of charges.
The defendants were also arraigned,each one pleading innocent.
Police accuse the now-closed clinic on Dale Mabry Highway of prescribing more than 2.4 million addictive pain pills in seven months. Attorneys for the defendants say the state has failed to say how the clinic's business was criminal given the doctor is properly licensed.
Have you been arrested on prescription pill or trafficking in oxycodone charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - When a drug arrest saves a life...
By Nick Dorsten, Esq.
While I have written often in the past about the scourge of prescription drug abuse in this part of Florida (see here, here or here,the tampabay website has an article that talks about how one man got his life back by GOING to prison...
— When a police officer knocked on the door of Dr. Kevin Denny's home around 9 one morning in 2009, Denny opened it barefoot and bleary eyed, wearing a terry cloth robe. Cars were being broken into in his Pinellas County beach neighborhood, said the officer. Could Denny come out and check his?
Within seconds, a dozen federal and local cops swarmed around the doctor who had once treated the powerful and prominent, guns aimed.
He was under arrest, they told him, for illegally prescribing pain pills.
The 55-year-old doctor's fall was long, hard and spectacular: An internist with sterling credentials and a successful practice in St. Petersburg, Florida for more than a decade, Denny lost it all to his own cocaine and alcohol addictions. To fuel his $125-a-day crack habit, he embarked on a new career: pill mill doctor, writing illegal prescriptions for OxyContin to addicts he met over a beer at a chicken wing restaurant.
Denny, who once led his fellow residents at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, ended his medical career in the fellowship of doctors who enable addicts to get legal narcotics. Unlike street drugs, the prescription trade requires doctors to keep it going. It is considered deadlier than trafficking in heroin and cocaine, killing an average of seven people a day in Florida.
Yet even in the Sunshine State, widely considered ground zero for the illicit prescription narcotic trade, relatively few doctors are even arrested, let alone convicted. Because these drugs do have a valuable medical purpose — controlling severe pain — and are legal if properly dispensed, it is tough to stop a pill mill doctor.
What kind of doctor gets into the business of harming and possibly killing people?
Many pill mill doctors didn't make much of a mark in medicine and have retired. "These doctors often have few opportunities in their later years,'' said a state special prosecutor for prescription drug trafficking.
When law enforcement moves in, the common reaction is for doctors to say they were railroaded, said an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County.
Then there's Kevin Denny — skilled practitioner and deeply repentant.
"Except for Denny, I don't know of any cases of doctors immediately admitting guilt and apologizing,'' said a narcotics detective for the Pinellas Sheriff's Office.
After his May 2009 arrest, Denny pleaded guilty, went to rehab, and started his 70-month prison sentence in October 2010.
"The last thing I wanted to do was hurt people. But I did,'' he said in a three-hour interview at the federal prison on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.
He says he is grateful he was stopped after a few months of scribbling prescriptions for addicts. He knows what could have happened.
"Thank God nobody died," he said of his "patients.''
But Denny believes he came close to killing himself.
• • •
In his earliest memory, Kevin Denny wanted to be a doctor.
He was 4, standing by his dying grandfather's bed. The old man moaned in pain. Denny's mother wept. The child made a promise to help the suffering.
No one in his family had ever made it beyond high school. His dad was a punch card operator, his mom a housewife.
They were strict Southern Baptists, and for Denny and his two sisters, their modest Kansas City home was a "serious place," he said. He remembers his parents worrying about his tie-dyed T-shirt and his hair growing over his ears.
He was smart, athletic, good looking and determined. In the National Honor Society, and an all-conference athlete in four sports, he was on track to achieve his dream: getting into a program at the University of Missouri where he could earn both his bachelor's and medical degrees in just six years.
His parents helped with tuition and he loaded boxes at Sears to earn money.
There were cracks in the success story. He got his girlfriend pregnant during senior year of high school, and the couple married. His parents divorced when he was 18. He tried LSD — once.
"But the feeling of escaping to an alternate reality was something I'd later crave," he said.
In medical school, he made an impression.
"Kevin Denny stood out," said an emeritus professor, "because he was so genuinely caring."
The professor recommended him for a residency at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, where he was assigned the nerve-racking job of leading the Code Blue resuscitation team. Fellow doctors so respected his calm focus under stress they elected him chief resident.
After four years, he got another sought-after position, studying heart transplant techniques at McGuire VA Hospital in Virginia.
He was recruited by St. Petersburg Medical Clinic in the late 1980s as an internist and specialist in vascular medicine. He loved the work and his patients. He also loved weekends of diving, fishing and Jack Daniels.
"I worked hard; I played hard — I lived to extremes," he said.
• • •
By the early '90s, he was living with his second wife and their three children in a big waterfront house in St. Petersburg.
For six years, Denny cared for a multitude of patients, treating the sick and dying.
At home, Denny was another man entirely, said son Stephen Denny, 36, the child from Denny's first marriage. What started as a fun evening would usually end with his drunken father becoming verbally abusive over some perceived slight, the son said.
"My dad at work was a different person from my dad at home," said Stephen Denny.
• • •
Wife No. 3, said Denny would come home from work and head straight to the fridge to guzzle four tallboy beers while he stood there with the door open. Then, he'd start in on the Jack Daniels.
"I begged Kevin to get help, but he was afraid if he did he'd lose his medical license," she said.
"I was afraid I'd lose my practice,'' Denny agreed.
"But I was also afraid I'd have to stop drinking and face what a bad problem I had."
Meanwhile, he was rated one of the top cardiovascular specialists in the Southeast by Best Doctors in America, which asks doctors to rate their peers.
"He eventually ran into a lot of trouble,'' said a former patient, a retired Pinellas Judge. "But, for years, he was an excellent diagnostician — one of the best doctors I've ever had."
After his divorce from his wife in 1997, Denny said he got heavily into snorting cocaine, smoking marijuana and hanging out at strip clubs. Up all night partying, he would be too tired to go to work. He had formed a professional partnership with three colleagues. But as his life unraveled, his partners and administrators at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg were concerned for him and angry that he was letting his patients down.
At their urging, he called a referral service for doctors with substance abuse problems. When the counselor said his medical license might be suspended, Denny hung up, he said, and never called back.
• • •
Kevin Denny's daughter used to spend every other weekend with her father after her parents divorced at his 4,000-square-foot, Tudor-style home in Tierra Verde, across the street from the gulf.
But after her father married a fourth time in 2006 and retreated into crack cocaine, the house became "home to the living dead" and she quit visiting, said the girl, now a senior in college.
By 2007, his work habits were so erratic, he was fired from his practice and lost his contract with St. Anthony's.
Still, said a former patient, a retired Pinellas County court magistrate, Denny saved her life because he diagnosed her auto-immune diseases and quickly got her to specialists.
"I vacillate between being furious at Kevin for not getting help sooner and having my heart broken,'' she said.
"Because he was such a great doctor who was throwing everything away."
He was years behind in alimony and child support and owed more than $100,000 in back taxes. His wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. His children wouldn't speak to him. His house was in foreclosure.
"Game on. Slow suicide," he said of this time.
By late 2008, Denny didn't expect to live much longer. He was having trouble breathing and his legs were swollen, both results of the booze and the crack, he said.
For Christmas, he gave his children his prized possessions: a collection of first edition books, an expensive tennis racket. And the doubled-edged razor his grandfather carried through the trenches of France in World War I — the same grandfather by whose bed a young Denny had stood, pledging to ease suffering.
"Despite all of the terrible things I've done, I hope someone will remember the years I kept that promise," he said.
• • •
In early 2009, he was approached by the manager of a pain clinic on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa and offered a job — $300 on the days he worked — which was enough to feed his crack and booze addictions.
"It was a pill mill. The people who came in were addicted. I was addicted. It was a nightmare," he said.
"But I was too far gone to care."
A few months after he wrote the prescriptions at the wing restaurant, police came to his house.
"They saved my life," he said.
His lawyer, a criminal defense attorney, who has defended other doctors and pain clinic owners, said Denny is unique.
"He actually welcomed prison," said the attorney. "The only thing Kevin wants people to realize is that addiction is a disease — a disease that's treatable, which means you can recover and perhaps shouldn't lose your medical license for the rest of your life."
But Denny did.
In prison, he gets up at 5:30 a.m. and sweeps and mops the floors. Afternoons, he mows the long grass on the side of the road. He is tanned and muscular now, his blue eyes clear. He has been clean and sober for two years.
• • •
Before he started his sentence, Denny was at home. A white SUV pulled into the driveway and a man wearing a dark tie and white shirt knocked on the door and handed him a paper to sign.
It began, "Kevin Mark Denny, MD hereby voluntarily relinquishes his license to practice medicine..."
Have you been arrested on prescription pill or trafficking in oxycodone charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com
While I have written often in the past about the scourge of prescription drug abuse in this part of Florida (see here, here or here,the tampabay website has an article that talks about how one man got his life back by GOING to prison...
— When a police officer knocked on the door of Dr. Kevin Denny's home around 9 one morning in 2009, Denny opened it barefoot and bleary eyed, wearing a terry cloth robe. Cars were being broken into in his Pinellas County beach neighborhood, said the officer. Could Denny come out and check his?
Within seconds, a dozen federal and local cops swarmed around the doctor who had once treated the powerful and prominent, guns aimed.
He was under arrest, they told him, for illegally prescribing pain pills.
The 55-year-old doctor's fall was long, hard and spectacular: An internist with sterling credentials and a successful practice in St. Petersburg, Florida for more than a decade, Denny lost it all to his own cocaine and alcohol addictions. To fuel his $125-a-day crack habit, he embarked on a new career: pill mill doctor, writing illegal prescriptions for OxyContin to addicts he met over a beer at a chicken wing restaurant.
Denny, who once led his fellow residents at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, ended his medical career in the fellowship of doctors who enable addicts to get legal narcotics. Unlike street drugs, the prescription trade requires doctors to keep it going. It is considered deadlier than trafficking in heroin and cocaine, killing an average of seven people a day in Florida.
Yet even in the Sunshine State, widely considered ground zero for the illicit prescription narcotic trade, relatively few doctors are even arrested, let alone convicted. Because these drugs do have a valuable medical purpose — controlling severe pain — and are legal if properly dispensed, it is tough to stop a pill mill doctor.
What kind of doctor gets into the business of harming and possibly killing people?
Many pill mill doctors didn't make much of a mark in medicine and have retired. "These doctors often have few opportunities in their later years,'' said a state special prosecutor for prescription drug trafficking.
When law enforcement moves in, the common reaction is for doctors to say they were railroaded, said an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County.
Then there's Kevin Denny — skilled practitioner and deeply repentant.
"Except for Denny, I don't know of any cases of doctors immediately admitting guilt and apologizing,'' said a narcotics detective for the Pinellas Sheriff's Office.
After his May 2009 arrest, Denny pleaded guilty, went to rehab, and started his 70-month prison sentence in October 2010.
"The last thing I wanted to do was hurt people. But I did,'' he said in a three-hour interview at the federal prison on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.
He says he is grateful he was stopped after a few months of scribbling prescriptions for addicts. He knows what could have happened.
"Thank God nobody died," he said of his "patients.''
But Denny believes he came close to killing himself.
• • •
In his earliest memory, Kevin Denny wanted to be a doctor.
He was 4, standing by his dying grandfather's bed. The old man moaned in pain. Denny's mother wept. The child made a promise to help the suffering.
No one in his family had ever made it beyond high school. His dad was a punch card operator, his mom a housewife.
They were strict Southern Baptists, and for Denny and his two sisters, their modest Kansas City home was a "serious place," he said. He remembers his parents worrying about his tie-dyed T-shirt and his hair growing over his ears.
He was smart, athletic, good looking and determined. In the National Honor Society, and an all-conference athlete in four sports, he was on track to achieve his dream: getting into a program at the University of Missouri where he could earn both his bachelor's and medical degrees in just six years.
His parents helped with tuition and he loaded boxes at Sears to earn money.
There were cracks in the success story. He got his girlfriend pregnant during senior year of high school, and the couple married. His parents divorced when he was 18. He tried LSD — once.
"But the feeling of escaping to an alternate reality was something I'd later crave," he said.
In medical school, he made an impression.
"Kevin Denny stood out," said an emeritus professor, "because he was so genuinely caring."
The professor recommended him for a residency at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, where he was assigned the nerve-racking job of leading the Code Blue resuscitation team. Fellow doctors so respected his calm focus under stress they elected him chief resident.
After four years, he got another sought-after position, studying heart transplant techniques at McGuire VA Hospital in Virginia.
He was recruited by St. Petersburg Medical Clinic in the late 1980s as an internist and specialist in vascular medicine. He loved the work and his patients. He also loved weekends of diving, fishing and Jack Daniels.
"I worked hard; I played hard — I lived to extremes," he said.
• • •
By the early '90s, he was living with his second wife and their three children in a big waterfront house in St. Petersburg.
For six years, Denny cared for a multitude of patients, treating the sick and dying.
At home, Denny was another man entirely, said son Stephen Denny, 36, the child from Denny's first marriage. What started as a fun evening would usually end with his drunken father becoming verbally abusive over some perceived slight, the son said.
"My dad at work was a different person from my dad at home," said Stephen Denny.
• • •
Wife No. 3, said Denny would come home from work and head straight to the fridge to guzzle four tallboy beers while he stood there with the door open. Then, he'd start in on the Jack Daniels.
"I begged Kevin to get help, but he was afraid if he did he'd lose his medical license," she said.
"I was afraid I'd lose my practice,'' Denny agreed.
"But I was also afraid I'd have to stop drinking and face what a bad problem I had."
Meanwhile, he was rated one of the top cardiovascular specialists in the Southeast by Best Doctors in America, which asks doctors to rate their peers.
"He eventually ran into a lot of trouble,'' said a former patient, a retired Pinellas Judge. "But, for years, he was an excellent diagnostician — one of the best doctors I've ever had."
After his divorce from his wife in 1997, Denny said he got heavily into snorting cocaine, smoking marijuana and hanging out at strip clubs. Up all night partying, he would be too tired to go to work. He had formed a professional partnership with three colleagues. But as his life unraveled, his partners and administrators at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg were concerned for him and angry that he was letting his patients down.
At their urging, he called a referral service for doctors with substance abuse problems. When the counselor said his medical license might be suspended, Denny hung up, he said, and never called back.
• • •
Kevin Denny's daughter used to spend every other weekend with her father after her parents divorced at his 4,000-square-foot, Tudor-style home in Tierra Verde, across the street from the gulf.
But after her father married a fourth time in 2006 and retreated into crack cocaine, the house became "home to the living dead" and she quit visiting, said the girl, now a senior in college.
By 2007, his work habits were so erratic, he was fired from his practice and lost his contract with St. Anthony's.
Still, said a former patient, a retired Pinellas County court magistrate, Denny saved her life because he diagnosed her auto-immune diseases and quickly got her to specialists.
"I vacillate between being furious at Kevin for not getting help sooner and having my heart broken,'' she said.
"Because he was such a great doctor who was throwing everything away."
He was years behind in alimony and child support and owed more than $100,000 in back taxes. His wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. His children wouldn't speak to him. His house was in foreclosure.
"Game on. Slow suicide," he said of this time.
By late 2008, Denny didn't expect to live much longer. He was having trouble breathing and his legs were swollen, both results of the booze and the crack, he said.
For Christmas, he gave his children his prized possessions: a collection of first edition books, an expensive tennis racket. And the doubled-edged razor his grandfather carried through the trenches of France in World War I — the same grandfather by whose bed a young Denny had stood, pledging to ease suffering.
"Despite all of the terrible things I've done, I hope someone will remember the years I kept that promise," he said.
• • •
In early 2009, he was approached by the manager of a pain clinic on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa and offered a job — $300 on the days he worked — which was enough to feed his crack and booze addictions.
"It was a pill mill. The people who came in were addicted. I was addicted. It was a nightmare," he said.
"But I was too far gone to care."
A few months after he wrote the prescriptions at the wing restaurant, police came to his house.
"They saved my life," he said.
His lawyer, a criminal defense attorney, who has defended other doctors and pain clinic owners, said Denny is unique.
"He actually welcomed prison," said the attorney. "The only thing Kevin wants people to realize is that addiction is a disease — a disease that's treatable, which means you can recover and perhaps shouldn't lose your medical license for the rest of your life."
But Denny did.
In prison, he gets up at 5:30 a.m. and sweeps and mops the floors. Afternoons, he mows the long grass on the side of the road. He is tanned and muscular now, his blue eyes clear. He has been clean and sober for two years.
• • •
Before he started his sentence, Denny was at home. A white SUV pulled into the driveway and a man wearing a dark tie and white shirt knocked on the door and handed him a paper to sign.
It began, "Kevin Mark Denny, MD hereby voluntarily relinquishes his license to practice medicine..."
Have you been arrested on prescription pill or trafficking in oxycodone charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com
Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Stealing from the dead?
By Nicholas Dorsten, Esq.
From the Times website, this is lower then low...
TAMPA — A 50-year-old woman was accused of stealing items left on the grave sites of a cemetery.
The woman was reported by witnesses on Thursday night to be stealing flowers, stuffed animals, flags and other items left on grave sites at Myrtle Hill Memorial Park near Tampa, police said.
The witness watched the thief put the stolen items in her vehicle, which was parked next to a mausoleum. She walked away toward a fence. An officer found the woman looking toward the vehicle from a hiding spot behind the mausoleum.
Police said she provided several different names after being arrested. The woman was held in jail on bail of $6,750. She faces charges of grand theft, disturbing the contents of a grave, obstruction, criminal mischief and loitering and prowling. She is (most likely now was) an accountant at J & F Enterprises, according to jail records.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a criminal charge or grand theft? Then contact the Tampa Bay area criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Tampa Bay area criminal defense lawyers please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
From the Times website, this is lower then low...
TAMPA — A 50-year-old woman was accused of stealing items left on the grave sites of a cemetery.
The woman was reported by witnesses on Thursday night to be stealing flowers, stuffed animals, flags and other items left on grave sites at Myrtle Hill Memorial Park near Tampa, police said.
The witness watched the thief put the stolen items in her vehicle, which was parked next to a mausoleum. She walked away toward a fence. An officer found the woman looking toward the vehicle from a hiding spot behind the mausoleum.
Police said she provided several different names after being arrested. The woman was held in jail on bail of $6,750. She faces charges of grand theft, disturbing the contents of a grave, obstruction, criminal mischief and loitering and prowling. She is (most likely now was) an accountant at J & F Enterprises, according to jail records.
Have you or a loved one been arrested for a criminal charge or grand theft? Then contact the Tampa Bay area criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!
For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Tampa Bay area criminal defense lawyers please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com. We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)