Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

The Operation Court Broom corruption trial ended messily this week, and the stench lingers. Even by local standards, it was one maggot-gagging parade of sleaze, and one expensive botch job. Too much time, too many charges and a jury that was (putting it kindly) too easily confused—it added up to bad news for the government.

Start with the key prosecution witnesses: Ray Takiff, a phenomenally crooked lawyer who went undercover to pass out FBI bribes, and Circuit Judge Roy Gelber, a phenomenally crooked judge who brokered corrupt schemes with other judges. Leaving a double-wide trail of slime in court, these guys were so odious that the defendants looked almost harmless by comparison.

Almost, but not quite. The defendants: three judges and a former judge, all accused of taking bribes to fix cases. The FBI had a helluva case, too—videotapes, phone taps, marked money. It looked like a cinch.

Final score: 53 charges, 37 acquittals, three convictions and numerous deadlocks. What happened? Lewis Carroll couldn't have hallucinated it.

The weird, warped verdict pleased Judge Phillip Davis and nobody else. The only defendant to be acquitted of all charges, Davis was also the only one to admit his crookedness. After he told jurors how he packed his nose with cocaine and packed his pockets with bribe money, they let him go.

Afterward, one juror said that Davis was clearly guilty of all charges. But, he added, jurors didn't believe they could convict Davis because the judge claimed to have been impaired by drugs. Really? Blowing coke is a legal excuse for committing crimes? Well, by golly, throw open those prison doors! Every inmate with a drug habit, shoo on outta here!

One juror said the judges deserved leniency because they were "first offenders." Like they'd been spraying graffiti instead of selling their oath.

The panel did manage to convict Judge Harvey Shenberg and ex-judge David Goodhart, while painfully acquitting Judge Al Sepe of most charges and deadlocking on others. Any verdict was a miracle, considering the tension in the jury room. Most jurors felt all the defendants were guilty of something, but one holdout—Gloria Varas—didn't want to convict any of them.

Varas says the other jurors badgered her and made her cry. The others say Varas stubbornly refused to consider the overwhelming evidence of guilt. Video of payoffs and bribery plotting failed to impress her. For instance, Varas discounted a surveillance tape of Shenberg taken moments after he stuffed cash in his trousers because, she said, she couldn't tell if the money was really green.

How did this person get on the jury? Before the trial, Varas revealed her belief that her ex-husband had once wiretapped her laundry room. That statement suggests, among other things, that Varas might think unfavorably of electronic evidence. For some strange reason, prosecutors kept her on the panel.

Varas remained adamant during deliberations, and the partial verdict was a lame compromise. Most of the jurors weren't satisfied with the outcome, and some flatly said the system failed.

While Davis rejoices, Sepe is considering a return to his old job. Why not? Voters blithely put him back on the bench after a previous scandal in which he allegedly solicited sex from a defendant's wife. This time, the snag is a mere $5,000 in marked FBI bills that turned up in the judge's nightstand. Voters will eagerly await his explanation.

Meanwhile, the feds intend to retry Sepe, Shenberg and Goodhart on the unresolved Court Broom charges. Let's hope more attention will be paid to jury selection. Next time, no space cadets.

A floating jail: Flotsam of the Schreiber mind December 10, 1986

Maybe Barry Schreiber's right. Maybe the thing that has been missing from Biscayne Bay all these years is a really nice floating jail.

Sure, we've got porpoises and tarpon, manatees and pelicans—big deal. You can find the same critters at Sebastian Inlet or Marco Island or Key Largo.

But where else except Miami in the modern 20th century would you be able to sail past a shipload of actual hard-core jailbirds? The thought is enough to make you wish Herman Melville or Victor Hugo were alive to write about it. If this had happened years ago, prison lore wouldn't be the same—Steve McQueen would've made his great escape on a jet ski instead of a motorcycle.

Ostensibly the purpose of a Seagoing Slammer would be to temporarily alleviate the well-documented overcrowding in Dade County's landlocked penal institutions. A clever smokescreen, Admiral Schreiber, but we all know the truth: This will be the tourist attraction to end all tourist attractions.

Imagine combining the romance of the Love Boat with the charm of Alcatraz. Even the warden could wear Ocean Pacific.

Think of the headlines, the national publicity, the renewed interest in South Florida's notorious crime rate. And it couldn't come at a better time—the start of the winter season!