| Judge Declines To Open Recordings In Miami DUI Case |
KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer
writes, "Sean Casey admits having several drinks the night of a fatal accident
in 2001. Somewhere around his last rum and Coke, while watching the sun
rise at a Miami beach bar, he says he blacked out. Everything after
that is a blur.
He doesn't remember driving home, only waking up in his apartment. But
someone slammed Casey's black BMW into 71-year-old Mary Montgomery as
she crossed the street, killing her. Authorities found the car
abandoned, its tags leading them to Casey. They charged him with DUI
manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crime.
A few years later, he fled the country before his trial, claiming his
lawyer, a big-time attorney now running for judge, told him to leave
instead of taking the chance he could go to prison.
Casey says he has the recordings to prove it, but Florida is among
several states where it is generally illegal to record someone without
their knowledge.
On Tuesday, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge John Thornton ruled that the
transcripts of those recordings will remain sealed, saying they were
made illegally because they were secretly recorded. The judge also
found no evidence that attorney Milton Hirsch committed a criminal act.
The judge called the tapes contraband. Casey and his lawyers maintain
Florida's statute is flawed and that regardless of how recordings are
made, they should be allowed as evidence because they show a crime has
been committed.
Casey said in a jailhouse interview this week that his former attorney,
Milton Hirsch, told him "that he wished I could disappear, to get out
of harm's way. He said prison is not a place for you. Prison is a place
with big muscle guys."
Casey also claims his legal psychologist, Dr. Michael Rappaport, told
him to leave the country before the trial, telling him "most of the
people who leave the country don't get caught. And there aren't DUI gay
guys from Miami on Interpol's list."
The Boston native said he was terrified. He and his family drained
their accounts for almost $100,000 to hire Hirsch, a big name lawyer
who'd handled prominent national cases including his successful defense
of Pedro Guerrero, a former major league all-star, on drug charges.
"When Milton Hirsch tells you to do something, you do it," said Casey, who speak fluent Spanish.
He talked with his parents and fled to Chile, where he had friends and
got a job with the Chilean Press Foundation. As a Georgetown alumnus
who once worked for the Inter American Press Association, Casey
frequently battled freedom of speech issues in Latin American countries.
He was deported back to the U.S. two years later and pleaded guilty to
the charges in the 2001 crash and was sentenced to about 12 years in
prison. Now Casey says Hirsch pushed him into pleading guilty, avoiding
a trial because the attorney didn't want the recordings to be revealed.
On Tuesday, Judge Thornton said he listened to the Hirsch tapes, saying
they "are not fully accurate, are incomplete and are misleading."
Hirsch, who is running for circuit judge in Miami-Dade County, has repeatedly denied the claims.
"They're utterly specious. This is proof that the sillier and less
substantial a claim is, the more press it will garner," Hirsch said in
a telephone interview.
But the judge did not listen to the recordings of Rappaport's alleged
conversation with Casey. A message left at Rappaport's Miami office
last week was not returned.
Casey, who tried to withdraw his plea in 2007, says it's all a cover up
and that Hirsch knew what he was implying. Casey wants is the
recordings to become public, vacate his plea and have a new trial.
Prosecutor Angelica Zayas accused Casey of using his media connections
to get the recording unsealed and put into evidence. "It's just trying
to come in the back door what Casey can't do at the front door," she
told the judge.
The Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press and the San
Francisco Bay Guardian editor both filed motions to intervene in the
case in opposing the state's motion to seal the transcripts.
Meanwhile, Casey has spent three years in prison as a teacher's aide
helping other inmates get their high school equivalency degrees.
He says one day the truth will come out. He thinks someone slipped
something into his drink at the bar that night and then stole his car.
Casey says he was never a heavy drinker and had never blacked out
before the fatal crash. Blood alcohol tests after he was arrested put
him at twice the legal limit.
Casey's current attorney, Thomas Julin, says he will likely appeal
because Florida's statute "interferes with the search for the truth."
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Posted By Lloyd Golburgh on August 18, 2009 07:28 pm | Permalink  |