Monique Worrell, the Orlando-area state attorney removed from her position by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Aug. 9, had been on his radar for a while.
She was one of the high-profile big-city prosecutors nationally, supported by liberal philanthropist George Soros, who advocate releasing many defendants or dropping charges against them to pursue a social justice agenda.
Mr. DeSantis’s office had sought records from her in March regarding a triple homicide in February. The governor, a former Navy lawyer and federal prosecutor himself, has consistently advocated for victims’ rights.
A more recent case precipitated her suspension.
Two Orlando police officers were shot and wounded on Aug. 4 during a traffic stop in downtown Orlando.
Police stopped the car he was riding in because it was linked to a Miami homicide.
Mr. Viel was wanted, the Miami-Dade Police Department said, for allegedly shooting and killing a man on July 10 in the West Little River neighborhood north of downtown Miami.
Mr. Viel, Mr. DeSantis said, was arrested in March 2023 for sexual battery on a minor as well as lewd and lascivious molestation, and he was arrested while on probation for another offense.
“And yet he was still let out on bond, and then tragically shot two Orlando police officers,” Mr. DeSantis said.
“I have no doubt that today’s decision is not only consistent with the Constitution and laws of Florida, that we have a right act, I know that today’s decision, we have a duty to act to protect the public from this dereliction of duty.”
Both officers were initially listed in critical condition. One was released from the hospital on Aug. 8.
The Orlando Police Department said “they both still have a long road ahead of them” but were expected to recover fully.
The department did not release their identities, citing Marsy’s Law, which allows victims of crimes to withhold their names in public records.
That Victims Bill of Rights law, originally passed as a ballot proposition by California voters in 2008, has since been adopted by other states, including Florida.
Mr. DeSantis cited another case.
Arrest records showed he knew about the pregnancy and knew that he was the father.
He had previously been arrested in May 2022 on several weapons charges, including carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a firearm on school property, and criminal possession of a firearm by a minor, Mr. DeSantis said.
“But he was released after all these arrests. Worrell’s office did not act on any of these charges until after he killed his girlfriend and their unborn child,” Mr. DeSantis said.
Suspect Keith Melvin Moses, 19, was arrested in November 2021 but later released for possessing a small amount of marijuana.
Ms. Worrell defended the release citing the small amount of weed involved was too little to sustain a felony charge.
Mr. Newman said in a letter to her that Mr. Moses and two co-defendants had long criminal records, that he was on juvenile felony probation, and that their arrests might have sustained more severe charges.
Mr. Newman said in the letter the marijuana case’s records showed “all three subjects have multiple firearms possession charges, to include attempted first-degree murder and armed robbery with a firearm, and all had ski-mask-style masks on them in the vehicle.
They also showed Mr. Moses was on juvenile felony probation at the time of that arrest, having previously been arrested for offenses such as battery, burglary, larceny, robbery with a firearm, possession of a firearm, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, and multiple instances of resisting an officer, among other serious arrests.
The dead in that incident included Nathacha Augustin, 38, who had been riding in a car where Mr. Moses had been offered a ride; T'yonna Major, 9, shot in her nearby home along with her mother, who was seriously wounded; and Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons, 24, who was working the story and shot after Moses allegedly returned to the scene.
A fellow news crew member, Jesse Walden, was seriously wounded.
Mr. Moses was charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
Ms. Worrell has stated publicly that she opposed the death penalty but said in May she would seek it against Mr. Moses.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, speaking after the governor, accused Ms. Worrell of failing “to do the job to which she was elected. The job for which she was elected is a simple one, that she protect the public and prosecute people.”
Ms. Worrell is state attorney for Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola counties.
“She will say, first and foremost, she has another agenda before she’s a prosecutor. The job she was elected to do is not to be a legislator and not to be a judge.”
“When a prosecutor fails to follow the law and do her job, those failures naturally have allowed countless citizens of the Ninth Circuit to be unnecessarily victimized. If she were allowed to continue in this office, her failure would continue to cause needless pain, suffering, and death.”
Ms. Worrell failed to detain criminals both before trial and after sentencing to protect her community, Ms. Moody said.
She never filed a motion for pretrial detention for Mr. Viel, Ms. Moody said.
“Not only was it never filed at the hearing, the prosecutor never asked for this gentleman, this criminal that raped a child—and was dead to rights on that—to stay in jail.”
Ms. Moody compared Ms. Worrell’s case dismissal statistics with those of comparable large Florida metro counties.
Ms. Worrell dismissed charges of more defendants than any other state attorney in Florida from January 2021 through June 2022, Ms. Moody said. She dismissed or did not prosecute criminal cases against 16,236 adult defenders.
To put it in context, Ms. Moody said, the Palm Beach County state attorney, also a Democrat, dismissed charges against 4,296 adult defendants, a little more than a quarter of the numbers for whom Ms. Worrell dropped charges.
Ms. Worrell dropped charges against 43 percent—“almost half”—of Ninth Circuit defendants.
Despite having a larger jurisdiction and a shortage of resources, the state attorney for Miami-Dade County dropped charges for only 22 percent of defendants, Ms. Moody said.
It’s not just adults Ms. Worrell chooses not to prosecute, but juveniles, Ms. Moody said. She dropped 42 percent of juvenile felony charges and 41 percent of juvenile violent felony charges, “by far” the highest rates statewide, she said.
“The reality in the Ninth Circuit currently is that nearly half of the time Ms. Worrell’s office is not going to prosecute you if you commit a crime. Officers may arrest you. They even may risk their lives arresting you. If you’re in the Ninth Circuit nearly half the time the state attorney will not follow through,” Ms. Moody said.
“Ms. Worrell has made justice in the Ninth Circuit almost an arbitrary coin flip.”
Ms. Worrell is the second state attorney Mr. DeSantis has suspended for failing to enforce laws.
He suspended Hillsborough County’s State Attorney Andrew Warren on Aug. 4, 2022, citing the prosecutor’s public statement that he wouldn’t enforce abortion laws.
Ms. Worrell and Mr. Warren were among 74 prosecutors nationally, and the only two from Florida, who signed a June 2021 statement condemning alleged “efforts to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming health care across the country” and saying they wouldn’t enforce laws that did that.
That statement was attached as Exhibit A to Mr. DeSantis’s order suspending Mr. Warren.
Other noted signers included Chesa Boudin, who was recalled from his office by San Francisco voters last year; Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting former President Donald Trump in Manhattan for his alleged payment of hush money to a porn actress; and George Gascon, the Los Angeles district attorney who survived a recall attempt last year when its proponents failed to get enough valid signatures.
Mr. Warren has failed in two legal attempts to regain his office.
