Is Florida's 'Troy Davis' An Old White Dude?

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

When Dr. Amy Goodman's phone died, she stopped trying to look at the time. Others had huddled around Ben Jealous from the NAACP and began to pray. The execution of Troy Davis in Jackson, GA had been mysteriously delayed by the Supreme Court for hours but ultimately, it happened.

People in every major city took to the streets. The mainstream media soon realized that they were losing viewership with every moment that they were not discussing the possibility that an innocent man was being murdered by his state. Time stood still for just a moment at 11:08 and then resumed again. Part of what we know as "America" died with Troy Anthony Davis... the presumption of our innocence.

Although there were undeniable racial components to the controversy that finally simmered to a boil on September 21st, it was not what any of us would call "racially charged". White people were also deeply concerned - even if they suspected, as the Supreme Court must have, that Troy Davis was guilty. No matter what our race, gender, age or other qualifiers, we all have an uncomfortable suspicion of persecution. It's part of the American DNA... We translate these messages from our government with bits of code that we gathered from the Salem Witch Trials, the Southern Strategy, the McCarthy Era, the Anita Bryant Crusade and the Satanic Panic.

Some of us are more keenly attuned to persecution than others. William Thomas "Tommy" Zeigler is just such a person. He has been sitting on Death Row for 35 years for a crimes that largely stink of being a set-up.

Back in the early 70's, Ziegler owned a furniture store in Winter Gardens just outside of Orlando. He had become friends with the local police cheif and was taking it upon himself to root out corruption in the area caused by the Ku Klux Klan who had begun pulling some kind of sharecropping scam on the mostly black citrus pickers.

On Christmas Eve, he intended to give his wife's parents a reclining chair as a gift. He went to his store to either meet them there or gather the chair and was unable to turn on any lights. Upon entrance, he was beaten unconscious and shot in the abdomen by unseen attackers.

When Zeigler regained consciousness, he phoned his friend (the Police Cheif) and informed him that he had been attacked and needed help. What Zeigler did not know is that his wife, his wife's parents, and an African American customer were all scattered on the floor of the store and riddled with bullets. They had been that way even before he entered.

What followed was the most convoluted and utterly ridiculous cooked up case against a man that you could ever imagine. Investigators decided that Zeigler had massacred his own family on Christmas Eve just moments before he was scheduled to go to dinner with the police cheif and a judge and then shot himself in the abdomen to make it look like a robbery.

The case against Zeigler was sketchy at best. Then, evidence began turning up from strange sources and new motives were "discovered" by investigators with a little help from the FBI. Suddenly, there were two eye-witnesses who just happened to see everything except the actual shooting.

When it came time for a trial, Zeigler was surprised to find out that the judge just happened to be his nemesis from his earlier activism against loan-sharking, sharecropping, or otherwise taking advantage of the migrant workers. A young police officer witnessed that judge and the prosecutor hanging out with each other and discussing the case.

By the end of Zeigler's trial, 72 people testified against him and the jury was utterly confused by the fantastic series of events that the State's Attorney expected them to believe. Both Zeigler and his attorney attested that they felt they were being railroaded. One juror was not convinced of Zeigler's guilt and raised questions during deliberation. She was threatened and intimidated by the jury foreman and this made her even more resolute. She attempted to contact the judge to inform him of how she was being treated and the judge ordered that she be given heavy doses of valium. Once they had her all drugged up, she was compliant with a guilty verdict but still insisted on recommending only a life sentence and not death.
When the verdict was handed down, the judge overruled the jury's sentencing reccommendation and gave Zeigler the death sentence.

Now - this sounds a little crazy, right? Well, the State of Florida's story was even crazier. But what really arouses suspicion is who all these players went on to become during the 35 years that Zeigler has occupied death row.

The blood-spatter analyst who gave a half-cocked testimony which falsely identified the blood on Zeigler's shirt (DNA Evidence later contradicted him) went on to become the nation's leading criminologist of this nature and even worked the OJ Simpson trial and appeared on numerous television shows.

In 2008, when a citizen advocate wrote to Herbert L. MacDonell (the blood-spatter analyst), to question him about the DNA discrepancies, the analyst responded with a brand new, never before heard theory of how all the blood got where it did... by accusing Zeigler of being bisexual and having sex with the body of the customer who was found in the store. That response, aside from its complete randomness and audacity, seemed to be a hostile response to being questioned about the case.

The State's Attorney, Robert J. Eagan was moving up in the world until a 1985 corruption sting fell upon him that involved allegations of bribery on his part. A judge was involved as well as a number of Eagan's informants and the allegations stemmed all the way back to a drug arrest in the late 70's, just after Zeigler's trial. At one point Eagan was quoted in the St. Petersburg Times as admitting that "one of his informants", whom he declined to name, may have accepted bribes without authorization from himself.

One needs only to look at the courtroom transcripts from Zeigler's trial to understand that Eagan is a master of manipulation and will do anything to whip a jury into a senseless frenzy... As long as there's a "guilty" verdict, he's not concerned with the aftermath.

The Judge, Maurice Mitchell Paul, was later promoted by President Ronald Reagan to US Federal District Judge and he still hears cases in North Florida today. Specifically, he decides whether to advance cases against the government for maltreatment of prisoners in Florida's corrections facilities. The Zeigler case is not the only one that Justice Paul is infamous for. In 1995, he intervened in a case that juveniles had against the Florida Corrections System and ruled in favor of the Dozier Training School for Boys. This will ring a bell for anybody who is familiar with Florida's most grotesque tale of child abuse - The White House Boys.

Where Not To Work

Can I just take a moment to say that no matter how broke I am, I will NEVER work for Wal-Mart?

Here's a few of the reasons that I will never shop at or apply for a job at Wal-Mart:

1. Wal-mart security beat a woman to death in China for allegedly stealing merchandise. After ignoring pleas to stop from the woman's family (for 2 hours!) the woman was dead and the reciept for her purchase was found in her pocket. No trial or arrests have been made in connection with the murder.

2. A Wal-mart in Michigan, being too cheap to pay for employees to scan merchandise has taken to making customers scan their own merchandise. Recently, a gay couple who were using a faulty scanner, were accused of stealing a package of Bic lighters. Once the matter was proven to be a fault of the self-scanner and not theft, the couple was still arrested and their adopted special-needs children were locked in a back room at Wal-mart with abusive employees.

3. Despite Wal-Mart security's ability to kill women and abuse gay men's children, they still can't prevent their customers from being raped in the parking lot at their stores in Florida or keep teenagers from shooting people in front of their families in Texas.

4. Wal-Mart does everything just short of waterboarding their employees who try to organize a union. They take their employees into management-run interrogation rooms where they are not allowed to have witnesses from their own employment level and threaten their lives, jobs and families.

5. Former Wal-Mart Spies say that the company has the ability to read the private emails of their employees who are on Gmail or Hotmail. They routinely dress their spies as local "liberal types" and infiltrate unions, city council meetings and anti-walmart activist groups.

6. Wal-Mart customers are internationally known as the most obese, mentally handicapped and classless people in the world.
7. Her affiliation with Wal-Mart is, to this day, a big gaping scar on Sec. Hillary Clinton's resume:

BSO Hates Hate Crimes (therefore doesn't report them?)

Want to know how to commit a hate crime in Broward County and get away with it?
Easy. Just don't call it a hate crime when the cops come to arrest you.

Last week, I attempted to yank on Sheriff Lamberti's chain for getting together with the Dolphin Democrats in an effort to assure us all that he is dedicated to stopping hate crimes in Broward County. Over the weekend, Dani Moschella, the Sheriff's Public Relations Officer returned my calls made before the post.

According to Moschella, "Sheriff Lamberti is committed to stopping hate crimes [and so is] everyone else [at BSO]." She assured me that the Broward County Sheriff's Office is doing everything within their power to investigate, deter, and otherwise stop hate crimes and that Craig Cohen's murder did not (at the time of investigation) turn up the requisite evidence to report it as a hate crime.

"So, what evidence do they need?" I asked her.

The answer was complicated, as expected. Moschella struck me as a sincere person who was dedicated to her office. She told me that because of Lamberti's efforts, BSO is one of the few agencies in Florida that even has a Hate Crimes Task Force. She believes (perhaps rightly) that Broward County is way ahead of the curve when it comes to tackling hate crimes in Florida.

(UPDATES 09/04/09 - Commander Wierzbicki returned my calls today and offered new information - see below.)

Wierzbicki, a member of the Dolphin Democrats (a gay democratic organization), has made comments to local papers that seem to be directed at those who wish to see Craig Cohen's murder reported as a hate crime. Most recently, he told the Sun Sentinel that "You don't just throw hate crime charges on a wall and hope they stick. This attack just doesn't fit the criteria for those charges."

In an email to me, the public information office told me to expect a call back from Wierzbicki. At first I was personally offended that Weirzbicki has concluded that those of us who are brave enough to call a spade a spade are "throwing things at the wall and hoping they stick". This seemed rather accusatory and defensive, especially considering that it does not address the specifics of the case. (see updates below)

Wierzbicki has addressed specifics of the case before, at which point he disappointingly did not address what strikes us as the most obvious evidence (the easily concluded sexuality of the victims and the plans formulated by the perpetrators) to say that there was no evidence that a hate crime had occured. Wierzbicki even went so far as to imply that they would need the murderers themselves to spell it out for them before they could have enough evidence by his calculations. A local rabble-rouser named Scott Hall, who is often seen at gay events with large photographs of murdered gay people looming around him, pointed out the hypocrisy of Weirzbicki's deflection by saying that if the same thing had happened to an African American person, we'd be looking at a different outcome.

9/5/09 - Speaking to Wierzbicki, he says that he and his department believed it to be a hate crime at first as well, but the evidence wasn't there. This is probably where Wierzbicki is in the uncomfortable position of not being able to give his opinion on the matter because of his position. It would most likely be illegal for a commander or officer to give an opinion to media persons which conflicts with the evidence at hand.

According to BSO (via Moschella), while they express their commitment to stopping hate crimes, the hard evidence is what matters in classifying hate crimes as such. The philosophy behind gathering this evidence varies greatly from person to person at the Broward Sheriff's Office. According to some, they believe it necessary to think in terms of what a jury is likely to convict on (which obviously stems from rhetoric used by States Attorneys). According to others, hate crimes are reported if the evidence matches enough of the bullet points on some mythical 'evidence of a hate crime checklist'. If such a document exists, I have not seen it, despite all efforts to locate one.

According to state law (see pg 6), a hate crime is when the perpetrator intentionally selects the victim based on one or more of the following characteristics: race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, advanced age, or mental/physical disability. It's a vague definition at best and the operative word in the attack on Cohen is "intentionally".

In the case of Craig Cohen's murder, the kind of evidence that would be needed to classify it as a hate crime might be something like this:

Officer: Hey, was this by any chance a hate crime because Cohen was gay?
Assailant: Why yes, yes it was. I hate gays.

This is the ridiculous sort of scenario that I imagine when I look at these situations in the way they are being described to me by officials. It defies logic that the requisite evidence of a hate crime is, foremostly, even required for reporting one and secondly, reliant mostly upon the perpetrator of a hate crime to give themselves away.

Since the murderers (who had already spoken to their attorneys by the time the words "hate crime" were uttered by anyone) were wise enough to avoid saying anything in official records about Cohen (or their other victim, Villanova) being gay, the murder is said to be one of 'everyday garden variety'. (09-04-09 -According to Wierzbicki, he is not sure if the perpetrators spoke to their attorneys before they were questioned but it doesn't seem likely in light of the fact that they discussed their motivations with Sheriff's officers at all.)

Evidently, BSO is not required (or wasn't at the time of investigation) to gather evidence of a possible hate crime by interviewing other people who know the attackers (teachers, neighbors, parents, friends, or church fellows). The perpetrators of this crime also viciously attacked another gay man (near a gay bar in a gay neighborhood) the same night. The discovery that the attackers got together and smoked pot in their hometown of Deerfield Beach while discussing the idea of going to Fort Lauderdale's gay area to find a victim is apparently of no importance to anyone involved. 09-04-09 According to Wierzbicki, the Sheriff's Department circulated pictures of the attackers and originally investigated the attacks as hate crimes because of the circumstances. However, because the attackers only confessed that they were looking to "mess somebody up" for a good time, the requisite evidence was not there to charge them with a Hate Crime. It is believed (by Wierzbicki) that the attackers chose their victims only by the fact that they were walking alone. We are expected to believe that by some divine accident, the two lonesome walkers that the attackers chose out of hundreds of thousands in the state of Florida that night both happened to be gay and it was just a coincidence.

During the Matthew Shepard trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price (the respective girlfriends of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson at the time of the event) testified that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. That's what sealed the fates of those murderers even before any hate crime legislation had been enacted. Hate crimes legislation is intended to bring awareness to people and declare that the United States of America does not tolerate socially-targeted hateful acts. It proves the point that some crimes are perpetrated out of hatred for any given social class and that we, as a society of civilized people find these crimes to be particularly offensive.

Unfortunately, some people don't completely get it. They believe that the point of hate crimes legislation and reporting is to issue that "extra punishment" for the perpetrators. Obviously, prosecuting attorneys have come to see the classification as a tricky bonus round in the game we call justice. The Broward Sheriff's Office seems to ascribe to that latter definition.

According to Moschella, "there isn't really any point [from a legal standpoint] in charging them with a hate crime because it is what's referred to as an 'enhancement charge' and [the attackers] were already charged with murder."

I don't think Moschella is out on a limb on this one. I'm sure this belief is popular in Tallahassee as well. It would be quite convenient for Florida's Republican legislature and the taser-happy cops of North Florida to think of hate crimes reporting as something that's sort of pointless and excessive. I don't mean to imply that Moschella is defending hate crimes - I believe her when she says that BSO takes them seriously and is concerned. But at the same time, there is evidence that BSO still might need some improvement in this department when compared to their peers. In a report issued by the Florida Attorney General's office in 2008, only 4 hate crimes were officially reported by the Broward Sheriff's Office. However, 25 hate crimes were reported by city police within Broward County.

Let's throw that last little fact at the wall and see if it sticks.

Still unclear to me until further interviews, is whether or not reporting hate crimes is only done when hate crime charges are filed. More information to follow.

This post contains updated information since the post "Queer & Loathing in Fort Lauderdale" was published. Future updates on this subject will be posted here and this post is subject to periodic edits and changes as relevant information is discovered.

Queer & Loathing In Fort Lauderdale

In Brief: This post presents some reasons that charging the murderers of Craig Cohen with a hate crime may prove more difficult that previously expected. Is the Sheriff's office doing everything they can? Or is Justice taking a back seat to politics again? Readers are also informed of the media/political campaign against the openly gay but now disgraced former "cop of the year" Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss.

We don't have a lot to celebrate in the "Venice of the Americas" these days... We still have PTSD from Amendment 2, our local celebrity good guy, Sheriff's Officer Jonathan Bleweiss was arrested for allegedly fondling male illegal immigrants during arrests (more on that below) and hate crimes seem to be increasing - but not officially.

New updates on this subject are being posted on this blog here.

Let's rewind to April 6th, 2009 where Craig Cohen, a nice mild-mannered gay man who loved animals was walking home alone from his dinner at a restaurant in Oakland Park. Suddenly, he was viciously attacked by 3 straight men and left for dead. The perpetrators took nothing except his cell-phone (presumably so that Cohen could not call for help). Cohen, who was still alive after having his head stomped into the pavement multiple times, was left with his money, wallet and watch still on his person. Cohen died from the attack months later on October 7th.


Just moments after the 3 men attacked Cohen, they attacked another gay man, David Villanova, in much the same manner outside of a gay bar - fracturing his skull in the process. This time, they decided to rob him as well. The two victims had a lot in common in that they were both happy, attractive, well-dressed contributing members of society. The only differences being a slight difference in age and that Villanova is still alive and recovering from his injuries.


The 3 attackers (Chad Olah, Victor Gonzales, and Pargu Leandro) should be charged with Hate Crimes, right? Right... But it's not shaping up that way.


Why? Because of course, there are politics to think about...



Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti (a Republican) and Rick Wierzbicki (an outspoken gay Democrat who leads the BSO's Hate Crimes Task Force) have been busy attending awards dinners with the Dolphin Democrats (a Gay Democratic group of which I am also a member) and the candle-light vigils for the victims. Both Lamberti and Wierzbicki have expressed sympathy for the victims and a commitment to put an end to Hate Crimes in Broward County. But according to the press release that BSO released pertaining to the crimes, the attackers might not even be charged with murder, let alone a hate crime...


So why would it be so difficult to charge these 3 men with a hate crime, let alone murder?


It turns out that the answers are nothing more than deflection, denial and political expediency.


A contact member of the Dolphin Dems (who I've chosen to keep anonymous) told me, in defense of Lamberti, that at the recent awards gala, Lamberti intimated that he believed the attacks to be Hate Crimes as well but not proveably so. This contact also went on to tell me that it's up to the State's Attorney and that the Sheriff's office holds no responsibility in deciding whether or not a crime is a hate crime (which is flat-out false and would render Wierzbicki's position rather irrelevant if it were true). Aside from what is said behind closed doors at the pricey awards receptions, the general public can only go by what's contained in the BSO press releases - which, so far claim that the two gay victims were merely attacked because they were walking alone and not because they were gay.


However, it is true that the State's Attorney's office has a role to play in shaping how charges against an attacker are leveled. According to Adrianne Reesey (BSO's Community Involvement Specialist), there is the matter of "reasonable doubt" to consider. She explains that what might seem obvious (to myself and other members of the gay community) might not be exactly the magic bullet to convict. A killer can actually walk free if the various elements of a Hate Crime are not proven beyond a "reasonable doubt" if that is what the State is charging the defendants with.

In Fort Lauderdale, proving Hate Crimes can be an absolute mine-field considering recent news. As it turns out, according to a thus-far-anonymous contact, the first officer to respond to the scene of Cohen's attack was the now-defamed Jonathan Bleiweiss. Bleiweiss was charged (both in the media and by the Sheriff's office - but mostly by the Sun Sentinel) of all sorts of lewd conduct and illegal behavior on the job. It's the kind of case (read: witch-hunt) where newspapers go and interview crazy homeless people to ask them for their opinions on the matter just to increase the gossip-factor. Bleiweiss was the first gay cop to be honored as "Broward Sheriff's Officer of the Year" right before Lamberti won his election by a slim margin. It was only a matter of time before a catholic-run homeless shelter, the Sun-Sentinel and Lamberti himself would find this gay rockstar's weakness... Big Illegal Immigrant Cock on his donut break.


Bleiweiss can't possibly recieve a fair trial (for allegedly using his badge to coerce illegals to have sex with him) after Sheriff Lamberti joined the media frenzy (176 television reports within a month and just as many newspaper articles) by going on television to say that Bleiweiss is guilty, guilty, guilty. The Sun-Sentinel and Palm Beach Post hammered the final nail in Bleiweiss' coffin by all-but-promising "victims visas" to any other illegal immigrants who might wish to come forward and make claims against Bleiweiss.


While Bleiwess sits in the main jail, awaiting his day in court, his tarnished legend might be just the kind of thing that a defense attorney for the anti-gay attackers would try to invoke to get a sympathetic pat on the back for his clients (two of whom happen to be hispanic).


Another factor is that one of the 3 attackers (Chad Olah) was not quite 18 years old at the time of the attack, and nobody seems to be able to tell me whether he may have done the most damage to Cohen and Villanova's skull.


One thing is certain - if Hate Crimes continue to happen and go un-punished in Fort Lauderdale, the gay community most certainly knows how to respond in kind. This is the kind of thing that people lose re-election over in South Florida. Pending Barack Obama's signing of the Mathew Shepard Act into law, the Broward Sheriff's Office may not have much input in future hate crimes and how they're dealt with unless they prove that they can cooperate with the legislation.


At the time of this post, no additional press releases have been released and further updates on this subject can be read here.