Suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell holds news conference Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. Source: YouTube, WPTV News- Florida Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast
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Monique Worrell is crowing over a judicial ruling made last week against Orange and Osceola County State Attorney Andrew Bain, the man Gov. Ron DeSantis chose to replace her last year and against whom she will likely run against this fall as she attempts to win back that job.
Orange/Osceola Circuit Judge Vincent Chiu ruled on Friday that Bain’s office had not provided enough evidence challenging the “honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness” of Worrell’s handling of the case of an Orange County sheriff’s deputy who shot a man during a traffic stop in December 2020.
He therefore denied Bain’s request to disclose secret grand jury testimony in that case that Bain hoped would make Worrell look bad.
Andrew Bain, a state trial judge chosen by Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace Ninth Circuit prosecutor Monique Worrell, on Aug. 9, 2023. Source: Screenshot/DeSantis Facebook
DeSantis appointed Bain to succeed Worrell last August after he suspended her for alleged “neglect of duty and incompetence.” Her legal challenge to be reinstated was rejected by the Florida Supreme Court earlier this month, but she is running for re-election to the seat this fall.
Bain is running for the seat as an NPA (non-party-affiliated) candidate. There are two other Republicans running in the August primary election, with the winner likely facing Worrell and Bain in November.
When Worrell was still in office, a grand jury indicted Orange County Sheriff Deputy Bruce Stolk in 2022 for aggravated battery in the shooting of 18-year-old Edenilson Urbina, whom he’d initially pulled over because of a suspected bad license plate.
Bain announced in March that he was dropping the indictment. In his statement at the time, he slammed Worrell, saying the case had brought to light “deeply troubling ethical concerns with the previous administration’s handling of the case.”
Question of motive
In his ruling on Friday, Judge Chiu wrote that “the State of Florida is the technical entity seeking to disclose the materials, and the Defendant [Stolk] does not oppose the disclosure. Given the circumstances, however, the Court would be remiss to ignore the fact that the Motion is brought by the current State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, who is in the midst of a contested election campaign against the previous State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, whose office oversaw the purported misconduct before the Grand Jury.”
Chiu went on to write that Bain cited two reasons for disclosure. One was that Bain was under an ethical duty to report the grand jury to the Florida Bar for “engaging in what the Current ASA [assistant state attorney] believes to be bad faith prosecution and misconduct before the grand jury.”
“The Court does not find, upon review of the record evidence in this case, that there is sufficient question regarding the honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness of the Grand Jury ASA [Worrell] to require disclosure of the testimony at issue for this purpose,” Chiu wrote.
The judge went on to write that in addition to wanting to expose the “purported misconduct to the public” by Worrell’s office, Bain wanted to rebut criticisms from Worrell’s campaign that he had acted improperly in dismissing the charges in the case.
Policy differences
But the judge wrote that the “bad faith conduct” alleged by Bain in fact reflected “policy differences between the current administration of the State Attorney’s Office and the previous administration.”
“The judge’s ruling confirms once again that the appointed State Attorney prioritizes partisan politics over upholding the law and acting in the best interest of the people,” Worrell said in a written statement. “These tactics are straight from the Republican Party’s playbook, where politicians seek to deceive the public when facts and policy and not on their side.”
A spokesman for the Ninth Judicial Circuit sent a statement to the Phoenix regarding the judge’s ruling.
“The State Attorney agrees public trust is important and believes transparency is the best way to ensure that trust,” said public information officer Jason Gunn.
“If Ms. Worrell is so confident her prosecutors did not withhold evidence that opposed her theory of the case, she should join us in our request that the testimony be made public so the people in our community can make that determination for themselves. Her failure to seek public disclosure of the testimony speaks volumes,” Gunn continued.
“She delayed this case for nearly three years because she never could prove the charge at trial. This delay caused the statute of limitation to run on charges Bruce Stolk could have faced. Public trust is eroded every time there is a lack of transparency. “
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