Brickbat: Bad Boys

Former Broward County, Florida, sheriff's deputy Jeff Poole has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison after after being convicted of a civil rights violation. Poole had arrested a woman on false drug charges as part of a conspiracy by disbarred attorney Scott Rothstein. The woman was the ex-wife of a friend of Rothstein, who wanted to use the arrest against her in a custody battle. Sheriff's Lt. David Benjamin had previously been sentenced to five years for ordering the arrest.

Comments

[John C. Randolph]

A year and a day is a ridiculously inadequate punishment for flling false charges. The pig should be serving no less than double the maximum prison term that his victim faced.

-jcr

[invisible furry hand]

In the finest tradition of Brickbat, the link goes to a photo, not a story. Here's the actual story. Really sad part:

After hearing Poole talk about how the Rothstein case has affected him and his family, Romeo [the woman arrested] told the judge that it has also damaged her family in heartbreaking ways.

Caitlyn Bates, the 23-year-old daughter of Romeo and Bates, has sided with her imprisoned father in the dispute and has refused to speak to her mother since Bates was sentenced.

[tarran]

I suspect that there is *way* more to their divorce than just the false arrest. If she was recovering from a pill addiction, it's likely that she was trying to reestablish herself in the kids' lives, the father was trying to keep her out, and the daughter was alienated from the mom by some combination of her experiences with her mom during the bad days and her dad's comments about her mom. The autistic brother probably needed special care, and I would expect the mother's habit interfered with her ability to provide that care. I would not be surprised to find that the daughter and father triangulated as a coping mechanism and to keep the family functioning.

Now she sees the guy who provided and cared for her and her brother thrown in jail because her mother wouldn't leave enough alone.

This isn't to excuse the false arrest. The father and his lawyer were utter scumbags and deserve what they are getting. But in the daughter's eyes, they were likely justified.

This is the black hole that is noble cause corruption - it starts with little things, and ends up with you deciding to kidnap someone and lock them in a cage. Had the dad stayed on the straight and narrow, not only would he have stayed out of jail, but the daughter might have had a chance to developing some sort of positive relationship with her mother.

Instead all that remains is the shattered remains of what was once a family, with all its members reduced to poverty.

[straffinrun]

"The woman was the ex-wife of a friend of Rothstein, who wanted to use the arrest against her in a custody battle."

IOW, the woman wanted to use the arrest against her in a custody battle. May seem I'm nitpicking, but that kind of sloppy writing drives me nuts.

[Andrew S.]

Rothstein, for the record, ran a gigantic ponzi scheme, and half of his former law firm is in jail/prison. He was also using the Broward Sheriff's Office as his personal bodyguards for a while, and they got used like this.

Lt. Benjamin, who was sentenced to five years, also did some other stuff for one of Rothstein's law partners (who's also gone to prison):

Benjamin also arranged for law enforcement officers to run a prostitute out of town after she and her boyfriend threatened to expose her sexual relationship with Rothstein's then-law partner Stuart Rosenfeldt. The cops illegally searched that woman's home, handcuffed her boyfriend, destroyed evidence of her relationship with Rosenfeldt and escorted her to the airport ? telling her to get out of Florida

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Florida