Newspaper Articles

Prisoner accused of indecent act alone in Broward
County Jail Cell

By Tonya Alanez
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted July 25 2007

Terry Lee Alexander thought he was having a private moment in his jail cell.

But a deputy jailer thought otherwise.

Alexander, 20, was sitting on his bunk alone in his cell masturbating when a female deputy, monitoring his cell by video camera from a nearby control room, took offense.

Today he's scheduled to go to trial to fight a misdemeanor indecent exposure charge and the maximum one-year jail sentence that would go with a conviction. The indecent occurred in November.

Although masturbation, a common jailhouse occurrence, violates most jail and prison rules, it doesn't often result in criminal charges. It is generally dealt with internally with a disciplinary write-up and temporary loss of phone or recreation privileges, Florida jail and prison officials said.

To discourage the behavior in Broward jails, the Sheriff's Office encourages deputies to file criminal charges, said Elliot Cohen, the agency's spokesman.

Deputy Coryus Veal seems to have taken that mission to heart. She had brought similar charges against seven other inmates in six months.

Alexander's court-appointed defense attorney, Kathleen McHugh, said her client did nothing wrong, he was alone, and his cell, tantamount to his home, is not open to the public.

"I think the government's gone awry, " McHugh, said. "Has it been a slow year in crime that they've got to go prosecute masturbation in the Broward County Jail? Aren't there more heinous crimes to prosecute, like drug trafficking or sexual predators?"

The crime is not masturbation, Cohen emphasized, it's indecent exposure. And privacy is among the many rights an inmate forfeits in jail.

"That's why there are no doors on the bathrooms. "That's why detention deputies monitor what you do and when you do it," Cohen said. "That's what jail is."

Alexander was charged with indecent exposure last November while waiting in jail to resolve an armed robbery case. Veal saw him a centrally located control room that allows deputies to view cells.

"Generally, we prosecute such cases in which an inmate exposes himself in such plain view of the detention staff or other persons," said Ron Ishoy, spokesman for the Broward State Attorney's Office.

Were it not for this pending charge, Alexander would have moved to the state prison system months ago.

Twelve days after the cell incident, he pleaded guilty to the armed robbery and received a 10 year prison sentence. Broward taxpayers have been footing thr bill — $91.29 a day — to keep Alexander in the mainjail while the indecent exposure case has worked its way to a trial date. The grand total for Alexander's incarceration in that case is nearly $21,000. On top of that, the public will pay $1,150 for his attorney.

Deputy Veal, 45. a nearly nine-year veteran with the Broward Sheriff's Office, referred all questions to its media relations department when reached at her home Monday evening. "We're not allowed to speak to the media," she said.

In each of the eight arrest affidavits Veal has written, she cites the "vulgar and indecent manner" in which the activity is conducted. Those are the key components of the state's indecent exposure statute.

Some critics are appalled at what they call a deputy's "moral crusade" and question the value of prosecuting such cases.

"I would think (taxpayers) would be upset that this is how their money is being spent," said Betsy Benson, a Broward assistant public defender who trains new attorneys. "I'm very confused as to why they would think that this is a good use of our dollars, our judges, the court's time and the jurror' time."

Inmates indulge in masturbation for a variety of reasons, said Trudy Block-Garfield, a forensic psychologist.

"It's normal human behaviour and these people are locked up, they're behind bars and it relieved a variety of stressors including boredom," she said. " But some aren't only doing it to relieve stress or tension or boredom. You have some who do it for the shock value."

Shock value wasn't the motive with Alexander and Veal, McHugh said.

"She's completely removed from him in a master control station behind glass, and he's in his own cell sitting on his bunk," she said. It is truly vulgar and offensive if one, out of however many deputies that are in that jail, find it offensive?"

Alexander has been offered time served but rejected it, not wanting to risk a possible sexual-offender charge and the liabilities that come with it, McHugh said. Of Veal's seven other cases, three are pending, three took plea deals and the state dropped the charges in one case. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office responds to similar episodes with write-ups and internal discipline, said Teri Barbera, the agency's spokeswoman.

But in Miami-Dade County, the corrections department has had recent discussions with the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office about pursuing criminal charges against inmates, said Janelle Hall, spokeswoman for the corrections department.

"It's considered offensive behaviour," Hall said. "It can be a thin line, we understand. It depends on the perception of the individual that it's happening toat that point in time."

Back to top

Man convicted of holding Weston woman hostage
for eight days

By Tonya Alanez
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted January 31 2007

Sean Alfredo Dupree told Broward jurors Tuesday that his accuser was "down with" being bound and lashed with a three-pronged whip.

It was part of a business deal, he said. They planned to split the earnings that would come after photos of her bruised and welted body were published online and in magazines.

The jurors didn't buy it.

It took the three-man, three-woman jury three hours Tuesday to convict Dupree of five counts: armed kidnapping, false imprisonment, aggravated battery, aggravated assault and battery.

Dupree, 36, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Broward Circuit Judge Peter Weinstein did not set a sentencing date.

Prosecutors said Dupree met the woman, then 21, online and when she refused to become a stripper for him, he bound and gagged her in his Weston home, holding her hostage for eight days in June 2004 while inflicting a "vicious, brutal, savage" beating.

Because of the nature of the crime, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is not naming the victim.

"[She] had the gall, the audacity, to say no to him, this controlling man, and he lost it," said prosecutor Dennis Siegel. "He beat her to the point she could barely move for days afterwards."

Dupree told jurors he had been involved in the bondage-domination business since about 1999, and that he engaged in such activities on a monthly basis.

Dupree said the woman agreed to recruit girlfriends to work as strippers for him. She declined to strip for him, instead agreeing to participate in the bondage photos, he said.

Defense attorney Kathleen McHugh said the woman consented to the beatings for money but turned on Dupree when she thought he was reneging on the payment.

When Dupree and the victim first chatted online, Dupree told her: "I'm going to make you a celebrity overnight," McHugh said.

"She likes that," McHugh said. "She likes the bling ... She was looking to come up in the world."

McHugh told jurors that the woman was a willing participant in a "taboo" and "clandestine" lifestyle that she was ashamed to admit to. She bypassed numerous opportunities to escape, McHugh said.

"Bondage and domination is about consent," McHugh said. "It's a consensual, alternative lifestyle and as sick and twisted and disturbing as any of you think it is ... it exists, and it is real, and people do these things to each other."

Back to top

Trial begins for theft ring that shipped cars to
Dominican Republic

By Tonya Alanez
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 21 2006

A prosecutor spent 90 minutes linking dozens of South Florida vehicle thefts to eight defendants accused of dismantling and shipping stolen cars, trucks and motorcycles to the Dominican Republic.

During her opening statement Wednesday in Broward Circuit Court, Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Kathleen George laid out the state's case, all 27 counts and 60 charges spread among defendants who, one defense attorney argued, didn't even know each other.

Back to top

"Obviously it's a lot of information," George told the jurors. "We are going to present it to you in the best way we can."

The trial, before Circuit Judge Charles Greene, is expected to last up to three months.

The defendants, all from Miami-Dade County, are Carlos Torres, Dennis Fernandez, Luis Rafael Mendez Francisco,

Damian de Jesus Grullon, Jose Andres Garcia, Carlos Jose Davila, Wilson Ricardo Avellan and Henry Vargas. They are accused of stealing luxury cars, SUVs and motorcycles from Homestead to Boynton Beach.The men face charges ranging from grand theft and racketeering to dealing in stolen property and fraud. Avellan is charged with giving his vehicle to the group and reporting it as stolen to his insurance company.

George portrayed Torres and Fernandez as ringleaders of the chop-shop operation. She said they would "clone" cars by outfitting stolen cars with vehicle identification numbers from similar, but not stolen, cars.

The sheriff's auto-theft task force infiltrated the group in late 2003. During a five-month investigation, undercover detectives arranged for the men to work out of a west Hollywood warehouse rigged with video cameras.

Five of the eight defense attorneys presented openings in an energetic series of seven- to 11-minute statements, with the others choosing to hold off until after the state rests its case.

Undercover detective Angelo Cedeño set up the chop-shop operation, providing the warehouse, tools, and vehicles owned by the Sheriff's Office, said Alex Arreaza, who is defending Fernandez.

"The evidence is going to show that [Cedeño] decided to bring BSO into the chop-shop business," Arreaza said. "The extent he would go to create this crime. He put his hand in everything."

Attorney Emmanuel Simon, representing Francisco, said his client's presence when a stolen motorcycle was transferred from one van to another does not prove that he was part of a racketeering ring.

"The evidence is going to show that these gentlemen are sitting here together as defendants, and they don't even know each other," Simon said.

Peter Patanzo said his client, Garcia, was wrongfully accused.

"They say he is part of a continuing course of racketeering and unlawful activity because he sold his own car to a neighbor," Patanzo said.

The state said that Kathleen McHugh's client, Davila, confessed to driving a vehicle that he knew was stolen from Miami-Dade County to south Broward for $100.

But despite hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings, Davila's alleged confession was not "memorialized" on tape, McHugh said.

"You will not hear one syllable uttered by Mr. Davila," she said. "He never speaks, is spoken to, or is spoken about on any of the 130 audio tapes."

Bernie Bober said his client, Vargas, simply worked as a day laborer at the undercover warehouse for three days in April 2004.

The Sheriff's Office orchestrated the chop-shop operation and "dedicated a lot of resources and manpower" to the investigation, Bober said.

"With all that expenditure of time and money, there is a lot of pressure on them to come up with some results."

Tonya Alanez can be reached at tealanez@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4542.


Back to top

Teen accused as molester gets bail

By Noah Bierman
Posted on Sat, Feb. 01, 2003

A judge decided Friday to let a popular high school football player leave jail so he can return to Western High School while he awaits trial on child-molesting charges.

Shawn Strawser, 17, was arrested Jan. 14 on charges that he played sexual games with four 8- and 9-year-old girls in his Davie neighborhood. He faces between 19 years and life in prison if convicted of charges that include one count of sexual battery on a child.

Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold set bail at $130,000 for the Davie teenager, with strict conditions that he avoid contact with the victims, all of whom live in his small neighborhood.

"If you should be looking out the window, which you shouldn't, and you see any of these people, look away," Gold told him.

His father told Gold that his home has been put up for sale. That's because the charges have caused so much neighborhood discord, his attorney, Kathleen McHugh, said after Friday's hearing.

Prosecutor Kristi Wagi presented Gold with a petition, signed by 111 neighbors, asking that Strawser not be allowed to return home. "We live 58 feet from him," said the father of one of the victims. ``We see his house no matter what we do."

The victims' parents said their daughters are finally emerging from their shells as they begin therapy and would be set back if Strawser returns.

But Strawser had his own petition, signed by 213 students and teachers from his high school. The school's athletic director, Catherine McCarthy, called the linebacker ``a marvelous young man."

McCarthy acknowledged she had no personal knowledge of the charges against Strawser.

Gold wants Strawser outfitted with a global positioning monitor, that would track his movements by satellite. Because he was not certain whether one would be available, Strawser may have to return to court next week before he is released.

Back to top

Posted on Wed, Feb. 05, 2003 Around Broward County

Teen suspect in sex case must avoid neighborhood

A popular high school football player accused of molesting neighborhood children will have to live with an uncle while he awaits trial, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Shawn Strawser, 17, was arrested Jan. 14 on charges that he played sexual games with four 8- and 9-year-old girls in his Davie neighborhood.

Last week, a judge agreed to release him on $130,000 bond but did not want him near the neighbors. Broward Circuit Judge Stanton Kaplan changed the release terms so Strawser could live with his uncle in another neighborhood.

Released Tuesday, Strawser must wear an electronic monitor and can leave the house only for school and other approved reasons. A more sophisticated monitor, linked to a global positioning satellite, was not available from the Broward Sheriff's Office.

He faces 19 years to life in prison if convicted of charges that include one count of sexual battery on a child.

Strawser's attorney, Kathleen McHugh, said the teen's family hopes he can finish out his senior year at Western High. "They are relieved that he's finally out and he's able to . . . get on with his life," she said.

Back to top