BY BUDDY NEVINS
“Hurricane” Sheila Alu is at it again and this time her work threatens to throw the courthouse for a real loop.
Sheila Alu
Assistant State Attorney Alu has delivered to the Public Defenders
Office a list of 28 police under investigation by her bosses at the
State Attorney’s Office or internal affairs officers of their own
departments.
The list could throw into question an untold number of criminal cases, past and present. It could overturn trials.
“This notice is a notice that the State Attorney has evidence that
indicates because of conduct of the police, a client could be
innocent,” Public Defender Howard Finkelstein says.
“This could be very, very big. It raises a number of questions for
our clients,” Finkelstein says. “We just don’t know the ramifications
yet.”
The Public Defender’s Office has assigned a team of lawyers to
research Alu’s documents. They are scrambling to see whether the cops
are involved in cases against their clients.
Finkelstein says in his 32 years as a lawyer, he has never seen a prosecutor reveal so many cops under investigation at once.
“I’ve seen maybe two or three (notices about two or three individual cops) in 32 years,” says Finkelstein.
Finkelstein says the document has no explanation of what the
officers are being investigated for or even information about when the
investigation took place.
He also says he doesn’t know what prompted Alu to deliver the notice to one of his assistant public defenders.
“Maybe she just wants to do what’s right,” Finkelstein says. “What I
am concerned about is that why haven’t we gotten these notices for the
past 32 years?”
Some in the courthouse believe Alu is seeking to embarrass her boss, State Attorney Mike Satz. There is talk in political circles she could be a future candidate against Satz.
Alu has been at the center of repeated controversies in the
courthouse in less than two years as a prosecutor. I have given her
the nickname “Hurricane” Sheila because of the hubbub that surround her.
She made accusations against a judge that resulted in an
investigation of the judge by the Judicial Qualifications Committee and
the Florida Bar and produced a year’s worth of headlines.
Just last week, she was involved in an another controversy when it
was learned she was fund raising for a judge she appeared before as a
prosecutor.