Few thought it could ever happen. Most thought 20-year incumbent State Attorney Kirk Zuelch was just too powerful and entrenched. After all, here was a man who could make judges quake beneath their robes. But he went down in the general election last month. Hard.
In recent years, Key West The Newspaper has, almost exclusively, chronicled Zuelch's slide down that slippery slope to defeat and disgrace. Therefore, the Fall of Kirk Zuelch is our story of the year.
Some say that Zuelch, after 20 years in the job, had just gotten too comfortable. He no longer even tried to hide his use of his office to forward the objectives of his powerbroker pals. Selective enforcement of the law was routine. And it was in your face.
For example, you may recall that, back in 1963, Zuelch refused to take any action when he was told by Mosquito Control Board (MCB) Chairman Joe Pinder that three other board members had illegally conspired to fix a job with the agency for Key West Mayor Dennis Wardlow.
But in 1997, he fell all over himself to try to punish two newly-elected MCB Commissioners who had run for office promising to unfix that job. His efforts failed, but he played a knowing role in helping to smear the reputations of the two new office holders.
And more recently, you've seen Zuelch's reticence to prosecute when the sons of prominent citizens are involved. But, at the same time, Zuelch often came down hard on "nobodies" who found themselves, rightly or wrongly, in trouble with the law.
A favorite strategy of the State Attorney's Office under Zuelch has been to pile on charges and, then, offer to drop some of those charges if the defendant will agree to plead guilty to the remaining charges. Over the years, most defendants, faced with the expense of hiring a lawyer and the uncertainty of the outcome of a trial, copped pleas— which made Zuelch's "conviction rate" look good. And his in-house stable of tax-paid lawyers hardly ever had to go to trial.
For years, copping a plea probably was the prudent action for most defendants— because, in most cases, the judges here have ruled the way Zuelch told them to rule. Attorneys would tell their clients, "Take the offer. The judges simply don't rule against Zuelch."
But that was before Key West The Newspaper began shining a light on Zuelch's office and the judiciary.
Because he was so confident that the system was stacked in his favor, Zuelch sometimes bulled forward with prosecution even realizing that he didn't really have a case. In these cases, he gambled that the defendant would eventually run out of money and would finally agree to a guilty plea at some level. In most cases, that's exactly what happened.
But, sometimes, a defendant determined not to be steamrollered by the system, would demand and get a jury trial. And that's the last thing Zuelch wanted. He may have been able to bully the judges but, in most cases, he couldn't bully juries.
You may remember John Murphy, who ran Duck Tours Safari here a couple of years ago. The Ducks— World War II amphibious vessels— were licensed to take visitors on harbor tours. But, because the vessels could also operate on land, they were used to take passengers back to their hotels or to various drop-off points around the island.
Murphy and his captains were arrested for allegedly running tours on land without a license. That's a criminal offense in Key West. Murphy argued that he was absolutely not running land tours and that "courtesy transportation"— offered by many hotels and other tourist-related businesses, does not require a license.
But the arrests effectively put the Ducks out of business. And almost immediately, true to form, Zuelch offered to downgrade the charges in exchange for a guilty plea. Murphy refused and demanded a jury trial. It took a jury only 10 minutes to return a "not guilty" verdict.
Three similar cases, all reported almost exclusively in KWTN, publicly exposed Zuelch's corrupt, incompetent operation— and almost certainly led to his downfall:
• The Nowatney case.
• The Pat Lloyd case.
• The Manuel Marcial case.
Our first Nowatney story was published last Jan. 28 and headlined, "When the System Doesn't Work: Nick and Carrie Fight to Get Kids Back."
The previous September, one-year-old Nathan Nowatney, while home alone with his father, fell off a sofa and broke his arm. Nick Nowatney took him to the hospital where doctors found two fractures, treated the boy and sent him home.
"What we didn't know at the time was that one of the fractures was an old `greenstick' break— which is hard to understand since Nathan never gave us any indication that he was hurt," said Nick Nowatney.
But Florida law requires that suspected child abuse be reported. And somebody at the hospital reported Nathan's old fracture as possible child abuse. The next day, authorities from the Florida Dept. of Children & Families (DCF) came and took Nathan, as well as his older sister, Natalie, 3.
This situation would have certainly called for an investigation. But, at the trial, we all learned that the DCF hardly conducted any investigation at all— like talking to the parents, neighbors, babysitters, members of the Nowatney's church, co-workers, etc.— before taking the children. Babysnatching had simply become a knee-jerk reaction for Zuelch and the DCF. Every parent was suspected of being a child abuser until proven otherwise.
And Judge Sandra Taylor, in ruling that the children could be taken, let them get away with it. We don't know what evidence she heard that convinced her to take such a radical action because no court records exist for that hearing. But we do know that she refused to hear the Nowatney's witnesses, who were waiting outside her chambers.
What could she have been thinking? We asked her, but she won't talk.
Actually, all the Nowatneys had to do to get their kids back was to plead guilty to some level of child abuse and agree to allow the DCF to come into their home at anytime to check on the kids— maybe for years.
"We couldn't plead guilty," Nowatney said, "because we didn't do anything wrong."
But you may find it interesting to learn that the Nowatneys' first lawyer suggested that it might be in their best interests to cop a plea, "because the judges just don't rule against Zuelch in this kind of case."
Because the Nowatneys refused to plead guilty, Zuelch and the DCF set out to punish them. Their children were held hostage for 200 days, shuttled from foster home to foster home up and down the Keys. We covered this tragic story week after week.
Finally, in May, it apparently just got too embarrassing for the judiciary. At the trial, Judge Mark Jones threw the case out of court without even hearing all the testimony from the Nowatney's witnesses. There was simply no case against the Nowatneys— and Kirk Zuelch kenw that all the while he was prosecuting them!
State Rep. Ken Sorensen, Co-Chairman of the Children & Families Committee in the Florida Legislature, called for those responsible for the Nowatney debacle to apologize to the parents and reimburse them for the more than $100,000 in legal fees. But so far, all that has happened is that the DCF investigator in the case has been transferred.
Our series of stories on the Pat Lloyd case broke last June with a story headlined, "Divorced Mother of Three Won't Plead Guilty To Child Abuse. Zuelch Will Put Her On Trial."
Early in the year, Lloyd had gone to the DCF for help with her unruly 15-year-old son. "I thought that's what they do— help children and families," Lloyd said.
But, instead of helping her, the DCF put the boy in foster care and accused her of child abuse. And when she refused to plead guilty and accept a menu of DCF "services," Zuelch and the DCF threatened to take her two other kids, a son, 11, and a daughter, 7.
"I was horrified," Lloyd said. "But I couldn't plead guilty. I hadn't done anything wrong."
She refused to plead guilty even when her court-appointed lawyer advised that she do that. "The judges don't rule against Zuelch in this kind of case," Lloyd's lawyer told her.
So Lloyd got a new lawyer— Attorney Michael Barnes, who had successfully represented the Nowatneys.
At the trial, it was obvious that Zuelch just didn't have a case. It was almost embarrassing. After just two hours of testimony, Judge Jones simply stopped the trial. Zuelch and the DCF subsequently dropped the charges against Lloyd.
Last year, Zuelch— apparently frustrated by his office's continued impotence in prosecuting what appears to be an organized mob of t-shirt shop rip-off specialists on Duval Street— arrested, instead, one of the classiest merchants on the island.
Manuel Marcial has owned and operated Emeralds International here for 20 years. He has a reputation as one of the most creative designers of emerald jewelry in the country. He also has a reputation for honesty.
But in mid-1999, one of Marcial's customers complained to Zuelch that Marcial had refused to give him a full refund for a seven-year-old ring that had been damaged by the customer.
Incredulously, Zuelch had Marcial arrested on grand theft charges; but almost immediately suggested that the charges could be downgraded in return for a guilty plea. Marcial's first lawyer, Ed Horan, advised that he accept the plea— which would have been a good deal for everyone except Marcial. An easy conviction for Zuelch. A quick fee for Horan.
"But I just couldn't plead guilty to something I didn't do," Marcial said. "I didn't do anything wrong. And I'm a jeweler. My reputation is everything."
Marcial got a new lawyer and demanded a jury trail. It was the right decision. At the trial, Zuelch's case was so bad that his star witness actually testified for the defense.
The jury required only 35 minutes to return a "not guilty" verdict.
Marcial is now suing both Zuelch and Paul Meyers, Zuelch's investigator in the case, personally for malicious prosecution.
Last month, the voters said, "We've had enough." Zuelch was defeated by Attorney Mark Kohl, who takes over as State Attorney on Jan. 2.
A sidebar: Kohl has said that he no longer wants the State Attorney's Office to act as the DCF's lawyer. So guess who we heard is going after that contract? You guessed it: Kirk Zuelch. Stay tuned.