Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, suspended the top prosecutor in Orlando on Wednesday, claiming “dereliction of duty” on crime. In return, the prosecutor said DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was a “weak dictator” acting undemocratically and for political reasons.
Monique Worrell, the ninth judicial circuit state attorney, is the second Democratic prosecutor DeSantis has removed.
Last year, the governor suspended Andrew Warren of Tampa over his supposedly “woke” agenda, including pledging not to enforce a 15-week abortion ban and supporting gender transition for minors. A legal battle over that decision continues.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Worrell said: “Elected officials are being taken out of office solely for political purposes … Under this tyranny, elected officials can be removed simply for political purposes and by a whim of the governor and no matter how you feel about me, you should not be OK with that.
“This is simply a smoke screen for Ron DeSantis’ failing and disastrous presidential campaign. He needed to get back in the media in some positive way. That would be red meat for his base. And he will have accomplished that today.”
Trailing Donald Trump in the Republican primary, and having recently replaced his campaign manager amid reports of a campaign in free-fall, DeSantis made his announcement about Worrell on a break from the presidential trail.
“Worrell’s practices and policies have too often allowed violent criminals to escape the full consequences of their criminal conduct, thereby endangering the innocent civilians of Orange and Osceola counties,” DeSantis’s office said in a statement.
In an executive order, DeSantis accused the second African American elected state attorney of “neglecting her duty to faithfully prosecute crime in her jurisdiction”.
The 15-page order accused Worrell of allowing practices and policies that “systematically permitted violent offenders, drug traffickers, serious-juvenile offenders, and pedophiles to evade incarceration”.
It alleged such practices and policies included “non-filing or dropping meritorious charges or declining to allege otherwise provable facts to avoid triggering applicable lengthy sentences, minimum mandatory sentences, or other sentencing enhancements, especially for offenders under 25 years old”.
Worrell was also accused of overseeing low prison admission rates “for crimes involving lewd and lascivious behavior, which includes possession of child pornography and other sex crimes against children”.
In his own news conference, DeSantis said that while prosecutors “do have a certain amount of discretion about which cases to bring and which not”, Worrell “abused that discretion”.
DeSantis said he was nominating a former judge, Andrew Bain, to serve during Worrell’s suspension.
Worrell told reporters: “If we are mourning anything this morning, it is the loss of democracy. I am your duly-elected state attorney for the ninth judicial circuit. Nothing done by a weak dictator can change that.
“I am a fighter and I intend to fight. I will not be quiet. I will not sit down … I will continue to stand for democracy. I will continue to protect the rights of the disenfranchised. I am proud to tell you that this will not stop me from running for re-election. My re-election will continue.”
Earlier this year, DeSantis and Worrell exchanged barbs over the case of Keith Moses, a 19-year-old believed responsible for the killings of three people, including a journalist and a nine-year old girl, in shootings in Orange county in March.
According to reports, Moses’s criminal history includes eight felonies and 11 misdemeanor cases, all bar one having occurred while he was a juvenile. His only crime as an adult was possession of drug paraphernalia and cannabis, in 2021. Worrell’s office did not prosecute, due to the amount found.
Following the shootings, DeSantis said Worrell’s office, which announced in May that it would seek the death penalty against Moses, “may have permitted this dangerous individual to remain on the street”.
“You have to hold people accountable,” DeSantis said, adding: “[The] state attorney in Orlando thinks that you don’t prosecute people and that’s the way that you somehow have better communities. That does not work.”
Worrell fired back, saying: “For this tragedy to be politicized, it’s shameful and we should all feel that way about it.
“Painting a narrative that there’s something that prosecutors could have done to keep this individual off the streets is just not true.”
