It’s been more than a full month since the November 13th arrest of Broward County, FL’s election integrity advocate Ellen Brodsky and the state has still failed to file formal charges or supply her with discovery documents.
As The BRAD BLOG reported in detail following the arrest, Brodsky was taken into custody, seemingly at the behest of her opponent in the election, after attempting to oversee the public counting of ballots for the election in which she ran as a candidate for Supervisor of Elections.
The arrest for “disorderly conduct” (according to police records) was caught on tape and posted here last week. The tape shows fairly clearly that there was no such disorderly conduct by Brodsky, despite the order for the arrest having apparently been issued by the office of the current Broward Supervisor of Elections, Dr. Brenda Snipes.
Today’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel picks up the story with an update noting that Brodsky, a month since her arrest, has been forced to seek a judge’s order demanding that prosecutors explain why she was arrested in the first place.
The BRAD BLOG has also obtained a copy of a motion to compel discovery exhibits, which have similarly not been given to her, as filed by Brodksy’s attorney earlier this month.
According to the Sun-Sentinel:
…
The case is open but no charges have been filed, State Attorney’s Office spokesman Ron Ishoy said Tuesday.
…
Her lawyer, Tanner Andrews, denies wrongdoing. He wants to know what exactly his client is accused of doing and who made the accusation on Nov. 13.
“Why they arrested her would be a really good start,” he said.
The short Sun-Sentinel piece also gets a key point of the story absolutely wrong, noting that Brodsky was “taken into police custody and jailed overnight until she could make bail.”
In fact, her bail — a grand total of $25 — was posted for Brodsky by her son at 8:30pm on the night she was arrested, yet she was not released until 5:45am the next morning, according to a summary of the arrest reviewed by The BRAD BLOG.
And while Brodsky waits for charges to be filed, her attorney Tanner Andrews, was forced to file a motion with the court to compel discovery in the case earlier this month. No such discovery has yet been given to the plaintiffs. The brief motion to compel, filed by Andrews on December 9th, can be downloaded here [PDF].
The motion is also accompanied by a December 4th letter from Andrews to Joshua Widlansky, counsel for the State of Florida, asking — a full two weeks ago — why his client had yet to be served with the state’s discovery exhibit, given her arrest more than three weeks before that, on November 13th.
“It may surprise you that I have not yet received your discovery exhibit,” writes Andrews in the letter to Widlansky. “If, for some reason, you do not intend to furnish the exhibit, please let me know promptly. If there is a good reason for the failure to comply, then I would prefer to avoid making a motion to compel and using up the court’s time.”
By the time of the filing of the motion to compel on December 9th, the state had “neither responded to discovery request nor objected”, nor had they returned a phone call left with his office, according to Andrews.
Today Brodsky told us via email that she’s unable to move forward with her own charges against Snipes and the county until she is able to learn the official case against her.
“Until we get a determination by the State Attorney to the merits of the charges against me,” she said, “we cannot proceed with a countersuit for false arrest, which we will most certainly do.”
Her attorney Andrews added, via email later this afternoon, that he also anticipates “civil remedies in tort and otherwise following the successful conclusion of the criminal matter.”
“A good citizen, such as my client, cannot sit idly by and permit government misconduct such as we have seen here,” he wrote. “If citizens permit such things, then the citizens effectively condone the misconduct which will become tomorrow’s obnoxious custom. If my client permits this abuse today, what becomes of the less prominent citizen tomorrow?”
Our original coverage of the arrest, on the afternoon that Brodsky was released, and noting outrage from colleagues and election officials alike, is posted here. The video tape of the arrest outside of Broward County’s election headquarters, following a call to authorities from Snipes’ deputy Fred Bellis, as also seen on the tape, is reposted below…
UPDATE 3/11/09: All charges are dropped against Brodsky. Details now here…
I hope she can sue the living hell out of them.
Brad, thank you so much for staying on top of this egregious abuse of power on the part of Brenda Snipes and the Broward Co. elections staff.
I’m guessing the reason there have been no charges filed in this case, is because there aren’t any(outside of Mrs. Brodsky’s incredible ‘knack’ for finding huge problems in the Broward Co. voting systems and alerting the voters to the nature and depth of the problems, there.)
Interesting note: the reason Ellen B. was trying to ask the canvassing board a question (referenced in the above video): she was trying to follow up on a report she received on election day from a voter who told her that her name was not printed on his ballot as a candidate for Supervisor of Elections.
Given similar “mistakes” made by other S.O.E.’s in Flordia (Kathy Dent left off an entire Senate race on 69 absentee ballots sent out to Northport in Sarasota–where we saw one of the highest “undervote” rates in ’06–and then didn’t bother to tell anyone about it!) I wonder what else Snipes and crew didn’t want Ellen to ask about or see.
Thanks again, Brad, for keeping this jaw-dropper on our collective radar. I’m following this story with obsessive interest…
Looks like officespokeshole better lawyerup.
And we should all send Ellen money!
Where can I do that Brad?
It seems the lady has had her civil rights steped on with a false holding, and by the police. Time for a Federal civil rights Complaint .
Gee, this would be a great situation to have a Department of Justice at the national level that worked to protect the Constitution.
Such a pity we don’t have one of those in the United States, but rther just a bunch of political hacks who answer only to the Rethuglican Party and the White House.
Ancient –
Donations to Ellen’s legal defense fund can be made via Ellen’s website at: RunEllenRun.com
Didn’t OJ just go to prison for using a gun to illegally detain a person ? I believe it is called KIDNAPPING, and that is exactly the crime committed by the police, as ordered by the assistant to the SOE.
How is it that an armed person can snatch someone off the streer, and hold them against their will, and NOT be charged with a criminal offense ?
Oh yeah, they have stinking badges, and can claim they made a “mistake”.
Good point, Tom. In effect it really is kidnapping, although obviously the badge protects the kidnappers from being charged with that. Also, the way the local paper depicts the bail/release is a prime example of how our media fails us time and again. I really think this whole case is emblematic of what’s wrong with our country on many levels- abuse of power, tainted elections, free speech, etc.
Thanks Brad, it takes a while sometimes to get juices and finances flowing. 🙂
1.) Have false arrest charges been filed yet?
2.) Have interference with public oversight of elections charges been filed yet?
3.) Have brainstorm session on how to stop this insanity from happening again been held yet? e.g. you know the building, the cops, the workers, the lay of the land, statigize the situation with cameras everywhere. Post signs saying you are on video. Or whatever. I don’t know the law over there.
It really is not that hard to find missing votes on these electronic voting systems. In Ohio, we I found that in every precinct and every election, in my county, since 2005 that the number of people the sign the poll books do not equal the number of votes. In most cases there are less votes than voters and in some there are more votes than voter. It is only very rare that the number of voters actually equals the number of votes. The BOEs workers have noticed this trend has exploded since electronic voting and do nothing to address it. New BOE employees believe that it is “Just Normal” and accept it a “…people too stupid to vote”.
Even if the black box voting was fair the “Rube Goldberg” voting contraptions are frauds. It has NEVER been cheaper, easier, less complicated, faster, more secure or more reliable tha any of the other methods ever used for voting. The Minisota race is still going on.