TAILPIPE ON ANA GARDINER
BROWARD NEW TIMES
Movin' Down
As told to Edmund Newton
Published on June 26, 2008
When last Tailpipe heard from Judge Ana Gardiner, it was Super Bowl Sunday and she was sitting mutely in her BMW after having driven into the rear of a new Mercedes Benz. It seemed that Gardiner, chief judge of the Broward Criminal Court, had been so preoccupied with checking up on an ex-boyfriend in Fort Lauderdale's upscale Sunrise Intracoastal community that she forgot to look where she was driving.
A minor hitch in South Florida's course of events. Gardiner got a ticket from an accident investigator, who wrote in her report that the damage to the parked Mercedes was $350 (though the 'Pipe has learned that repairs on the Mercedes cost ten times that).
But the accident cast some unwanted light on Gardiner's allegedly cozy relations with other lawyers. In April, New Times columnist Bob Norman followed with his feature "Judging Ana," which reported on Gardiner's improper relationships with lawyers and prosecutors who appear before her. One of the lawyers named in the story, veteran homicide prosecutor Howard Scheinberg, left the State Attorney's Office shortly after publication.
Tailpipe can't answer the $64,000 question of whether, as rumored around the courthouse, Gardiner is being investigated by the Judicial Qualifying Commission. But he can say (as no other newspaper has reported) that Gardiner has been removed from her vaunted position as chief criminal judge of Broward County.
Gardiner is currently (and ignominiously, according to some courthouse observers) a civil court judge.
© 2008 Village Voice Media All rights reserved.
Gardiner got promoted! Darn it, she was promoted, I tell you. Civil is a promotion. Everyone knows that. She wanted to go to civil. She was rewarded. The article means nothing. Civil is the next logical step on her way to the Supreme Court!
Ana Gardiner is an excellent judge- intelligent, candid, warm. She doesn't deserve all these catty, jealous comments.
STOP printing lies about Judge Gardiner and get back to teh real purpose of the block. Enough is enough.
Ana Gardiner is a political beast. She worked her way from the coveted position of Commish of the North Broward Hospital District to Circuit Court judge, along the way receiving help from the likes of Ken Jenne, Mike Satz, Russ Barakat, at that time her husband Billy Gardiner (she dumped Billy after she got her judgeship and he is now her ex) and others.
She was not qualified for the circuit judge position, but to her credit, she learned from Paul Backman and others and became a good circuit criminal judge. She did so well that she was promoted by then Chief Judge Dale Ross; first to repeat offender court and then to Chief Criminal judge. The New Times story broke and now chief judge, Vic Tobin had to put her in civil.
Along the way, she got romantic with Cotrone, Patanzo, Scheinberg and others, defense attorneys and prosecutors, who were appearing before her. None of them disclosed their relationship to the opposing sides. A huge ethical breach.
If she is smart she should hope for and take a public reprimand; if she's afflicted with blind faith and a huge ego and fights this, she will be removed from the bench.
One thing is certain her ego has been shot and more importantly she will never be anything more than a circuit court judge. I suspect she would not do well in private practice. Has anyone seen Shelly Schapiro, that pompous ass, lately?
Shelly too was a product of Russ Barakat. Their are many others still on the bench thanks to the corrupt felon Barakat. You know who you are.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
by Bob Wills
As a member of the Judicial Nominating Commission that nominated Ana Gardiner to the Circuit Court bench, it gives me great pride to see her working to fix magistrate hearings in Broward County. In recent weeks, she has been meeting with the stakeholders and other judges about changing the system. Apparently, a full time magistrate, better pre-trial release hearings at First Appearance, utilizing different courtrooms, and having more client information available for all parties are some of the items under consideration.
For too long Broward County magistrates have been deficient. Rotating judges, who treat these proceedings as an unimportant extra assignment, with the goal of rushing through the proceedings as quickly as possible, have been a major factor in keeping the county jail population unnecessarily high for years. Without the mandated pretrial release hearing, the criteria for pretrial release have been the standard bond schedule. However, poor people, who are unable to post any bond, no matter what the charge, have long suffered under the old system. In addition, people with bad records, who may be dangerous to the community, but who can post the standard bond are back out on the streets.
The Florida Statutes and Rules of Criminal Procedure require a full hearing on pretrial release or pretrial detention at magistrates. While a standard bond schedule has its purpose at booking, each new arrestee should be judicially reviewed, individually, considering their ties to the community, background, offense charged, and alternatives for release. In the past two and one half years, the Public Defender’s Early Representation Unit has pushed and clawed to make these proceedings conform to the law. Over a year ago, I was personally involved in discussions with the Sheriff, Clerk, State Attorney, and Judiciary to come up with a better magistrate court to address these deficiencies. At that time, the Public Defender, State Attorney, Clerk, and Sheriff, all agreed that starting at 11:00 AM or having two daily magistrate hearings, morning and afternoon, would allow the players to get more information before the magistrate to enable it to do its job properly. However, the old judicial administration said "NO. NO. NO." Now, it appears that things are about to change.
I have been around this system for over thirty years, far too long some say. However, I remember when the jail population suit was originally filed in the early 1980s. At that time Chief Judge George Tedder tried an experiment: he made Circuit Judge Thomas Coker, a full time magistrate for three months. During that time, the pretrial jail population decreased dramatically. The participants in the experiment discovered that when there is a full pretrial release hearing at magistrates, arrestees do not have to wait, sometimes weeks, for the assigned judge to set another hearing. When the experiment was over, Judge Tedder designed a magistrate syste
MORAL OF THE STORY: Nothing in Politics resembles in the faintest degree anything having to do with Honor.
With the circumstances regarding Gardiner, it was just taken to the extreme.
She better trade in her gas guzzler. I'm talking about her car.
I find it very disturbing that a woman with an incredible amount of power has displayed this behavior. Personally, if I were to appear before her as a juror , a plaintiff, or a defendant I would not be comfortable. Perhaps she should consider another profession.
The name of the article should have been entitled "Moving Out".
No amount of spin is going to convince me that she wasn't demoted because of what would have been a much deeper investigation by the JQC should she have remained unrepentant.
"though the 'Pipe has learned that repairs on the Mercedes cost ten times that"
ohhhh some investigative journalism. Thats some great work.
If she agrees to a plea of public reprimand with the JQC she will have to testify truthfully under oath as to her cohorts in ethics violations. That's when the Florida Bar comes in. Who does Ana rat out?
Her half brother and Florida Bar attorney, Juan Arias, would have to recuse himself, wouldn't he? What about Alan Pascal, recuse? Adria Quintela, recuse? Is there anyone over at the Florida Bar Office in Broward County that can be trusted?
I don't think so.
Get over it New Times. The "vicitm" in the car accident case is a complainer that only you seem to listen to. You wrote about her in September, 2007 also. Remember:
Fort Lauderdale parent My Warhaftig says that she joined the Miley World Fan Club for the specific reason of getting tickets for the show. After paying $25 in annual dues, hoping her 10-year-old daughter, Shayna, a student at Bayview Elementary, would have a jump on the competition, she was shocked to find out that even presale tickets were "sold out" — an oxymoron whose gaping misrepresentation of the truth is not lost on Warhaftig.
"You can't even have a child go to a venue without such a heavy price to pay these days," she says. "It's America at its worst."
"America at its worst"???? Go party with Michelle Obama and leave the rest of us alone. Your illegally and poorly parked car got run into by a fully insured driver and probably had lots of old things fixed because of it. We should all be so lucky.
ANA won't RATPHAN........ THE BAR works hard to intimidate potential snitches....... how else could ex-judge jay spechler and michael hamaway stay out of jail this long.
To 1:11 PM:
Nice try Ana! Attack your accusers. You go girl! Fight this to the end. The end of your judicial career.
I feel nothing for her. She whacked everybody for no good reason a lot of the time. She held them to the letter of the law. She should get the same treatment. Especially with these types of issues.
Where is the state attorney? Why is his office not reviewing the finkelstein matters? Finkelstein is now admitting that he pays his employees (michaelson) to perform the help me howard segments. When in a prior sun sentinel article he stated that channel 7 did all the leg work for help me howard, what other employees are doing the help me howard segments, how much? what hours? there are so many questions to be asked and the taxpayers need the answers, why isn't this being investigated. We are all tired of these cozy deals? They expect Alex who is running a small law firm with limited resources to do the investigation on his own? This cries out for the state attorney to look into this, isn't this a perfect example of abuse of office? Wasting taxpayer money for private gain? Finkelstein's answers are basically lame, they don't respond to the heart of the issue. That being, employees are performing help me howard work during work hours? and everybody knows that it is a soft job to begin with, when finkelstein says that his supervisors work obsessiverly that is a bogus argument, so that gives the right to work on help me howard during 9 - 5 wrong, let's get statements from other employees and secretaries and everybody who knows the facts, do we expect Alex to perform that task? What official position does he hold that he can ask for statements from these employees? We the state attorney's office to investigate.
Finkelstein states that he doesn't know what Alex wants "it's a fishing expedition" if it is a fishing expedition, Alex caught the whale, Alex has now verified that finkelstein has employees working for his help me howard segment, furthermore finkelstein admits that he pays them rumuneration for their services, this is where a government entity needs to fully investigate. 1. how does he have an arms length negotiation with these employees 2. how does finkelstein supervise them performing the public defenders work and the help me howard, are there other employees that are performing the help me howard and not being paid, how many of these employees are performing work for the hmh segment during the day 9 - 5 when they should be working as asst public defenders are they showing it on their tax returns, if this a fishing expedition, Alex can open up a fish market because he has caught a lot of fish, henceforth, these are legitimate questions that need answering and this is just the tip of the iceberg, these are facts that have been substantiated by finkelstein's statements related to the media, we need an aggressive inquiry, there has been enough wasting of the public defender's assets and resources.
Better yet, why doesn't Satz investigate the Patanzo, Scheinberg and Gardiner scandal? Is he trying to distance himself? Doesn't he have an obligation to investigate for justice's sake even if it embarrases his own office?
The only thing Alex has caught on his fishing expedition is a cold and a bill for $100,000.00 that he wants the taxpayers to pay.
Does anybody really care about Arreaza?
He has the support of no one, not even the hispanic community. The only people supporting him are Raag, Jay Hurley, Gary Ostrow, Alex Lambidis and if you believe this Blog Dale Ross and that idiot Jay Spechler. What a bunch of losers.
If anyone thinks Satz is going to investigate Howard Finkelstein they are living in wonderland. By the by, Alex Arreaza is on Satz' host committee. Satz is not getting involved in that one
The real issue is when and what did Satz and Chuck Morton know about the Ana affairs with Patanza and Scheinberg and what did he do about it. If Satz and Morton knew something was wrong they had an obligation to inform the bar. CAN THIS BE SATZ'S ACHILLES HEEL?
Broward is never surprised when it comes to it's judges and the misdeeds of their fellow patriots. Sad bunch, really. Ana made her bed, now it has come full turn.
Where honor should be, there is but a void with these people.
If Obama wins can Ana snatch that federal district court judgeship from Bidwell's jaws? Or does Bidwell need a McCain win?
Ana will make the Federal Court of Appeals whether Obama or MCain wins.
Bogenschutz and Dutko will keep appealing.
Drum roll.
Take my wife, please.
READ MY LIPS: Nothing but lateral moves from here on out for Broward Courthouse former Poster Girl. Keep your eyes on the ball. It's bouncing back this way soon!
The reals story is Finkelstein using state employees to do work for the help me howard segments.
How about former employees? Obsession still alive and well I notice?
Knox Village is now accepting applications for immediate occupancy. Assisted Retired living at its best.
June 29, 2008
The Honorable Victor J. Tobin
Chief Judge, Broward Circuit Court
Broward County Courthouse
201 SE Sixth Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301
Re: Lack of Valid Federally- and State-Mandated Judges’ Loyalty Oaths
Dear Judge Tobin:
I hope this letter finds you well. I was last before you on a contempt matter you may recall.
I sent you several days ago a Public Records Law request, pursuant to FS Chapter 119, and I appreciate your office’s speedy response. I attach for your consideration the State Loyalty Oath, mandated by 4 USC 101, 102 and FS 876.05, of Circuit Court Judge Thomas M. Lynch, IV.
Unfortunately, it is defective and invalid in two regards: It is not an oath for his current term of office, which it must be, and it is not even for his office of Circuit Court Judge. As you can see, it is for his prior office, that of County Court Judge.
What this means is that Judge Lynch is operating as a Circuit Court Judge without legal authority to do so. State and federal case law makes that rather clear. It also means that any orders entered by any oathless judges are void. This is quite a mess.
This is of interest to me generally, as I have just filed a quo warranto and qui tam action arising out of the 62% failure rate of Miami-Dade judges to execute their oaths, and, more specifically, I have a case before Judge Lynch. The lawyer on the other side, who is also a party, has threatened me with criminal contempt (this is a habit of his) if I, as a party, file anything with Judge Lynch, although he, as a party, continues to do so. Go figure. So I cannot, according to this contempt-happy lawyer, file a timely motion for recusal with Judge Lynch. I would suggest that you might want to suggest to him that a sua sponte recusal would be appropriate.
Thus, I bring this to your attention in light of my general as well as my specific concerns, and, even more importantly, because I would suspect that we have in Broward what we know we have in Miami-Dade—a crisis caused by the failure of so many judges to comply with the law as to their oaths. A recent Inspector General and State Attorney Investigation by Ms. Rundle found that three of the judges’ oaths were forged.
I would respectfully suggest that it would be a good idea for us to have a hearing on this, as this is a real problem facing the Broward County court system and one which I would humbly suggest might well be addressed by you immediately.
Please advise if that is in the offing; otherwise, I shall proceed on my own. Thank you very much for your consideration, and I wish you a blessed Independence Day, particularly in light of the fact that the first Act of Congress ever passed was the Loyalty Oath Act. Oaths matter, according to the Founders, and I know you know that as well. We cannot have a system of justice without them.
Regards, Jack Thompson