The Villages of Florida is by far America’s largest retirement community. The sprawling city has a population of about 145,000 mostly retirees. The amenities are amazing. Roughly 60 golf courses (free to any resident), over 100 pools, three town squares that feature free music and dancing every night, more pickle ball courts than can perhaps be counted and scores of beautiful recreation centers. With a highly integrated health system, The Villages gives seniors what they want and need.
The Villages is also powerfully self governing, effectively by those who developed it. That is mostly the Morse family, and every Villager resident (and I am one) knows of them and the powerful hand by which they rule their kingdom. There is little ability to challenge that ruling hand, or even question it. The Villages owns the ubiquitous local newspaper and even the local Fox News broadcasting radio station. The Villages has made news for being a MAGA stronghold.
Important for this story is that growth in The Villages is still booming. Exploding growth requires funding. At issue are two competing ways of funding that expanding development. The developers can pay for it (i.e. The various Villages corporations and the Morse family), or existing residents can pay for it. Naturally the developers didn’t want to pay for their developing, and so being in charge they raised property taxes on existing residents 25% to pay for continued expansion. Thus, the current residents saw their taxes increase, not to improve their own facilities or infrastructure, but to build facilities and infrastructure for others.
This did not sit well with some and to address it several ran for County Commission. They won a controlling majority and quickly became a barrier to what The Villages wanted to do. In one act the new County Commissioner majority increased development fees by 75%. The Villages flexed its political muscle and used the state legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis to overturn that increase, effective retroactively.
Still the new controlling majority on the County Commission had shown its ability to be a nuisance to the desires of the Villages Powers That Be. Thus, they had to be eliminated. If that elimination required cooperating corruption from the prosecutorial and judicial systems, that’s not a problem. As this story illustrates, that too was in The Villages pocket.
One of the new Villagers gone rogue on the County Commission was 72 year old Oren Miller, another was a friend of his, Gary Search. After receiving complaints from various Villages allies the local prosecutor decided to investigate the two under Florida’s Sunshine law. Under that law County Commissioners can only discuss county business publicly. Any nonpublic discussions between the two could not include county business.
The State Attorney William Gladson took over this minor concern about supposed Sunshine Law violations. The incredibly zealous prosecutor corruptly targeting them under this anti-corruption law secured their phone records and had a cooperative Miller in for questioning.
The seminal portion of this questioning focused on when Miller and Search had phone calls. In response to leading questions Miller agreed with the prosecutor that such calls ended in January. Yet before and after that Miller referred to calls that went into February and March. On one such occasion the prosecutor said, “you said January.” That statement by the prosecutor was a lie. Miller never said January, he just acquiesced to the prosecutor suggesting it was January.
When all this became the basis for a perjury charge Miller’s attorney brought up this lie to the judge. The shocking answer from the prosecutor was, “police may lie.” This is true. It arises generally in the context of the interrogation trick where a cop falsely tells a suspect that his accomplice has already confessed. However, that trick, to gain a confession, is materially different than using the interviewee’s agreement with what the police said as the entire basis for the crime of perjury.
In a legitimate investigation, an investigation honestly seeking the actual facts as to a potential Sunshine Law violation, the prosecutor would have said something like, “you’ve been all over on this. You’ve talked about calls in February and March, but agreed with me the calls ended in January. When did the calls end?” That didn’t happen because this was not a legitimate investigation. This was an attempt to trap the suspect with a gotcha because the underlying charge of Sunshine violation just wasn’t supported by the evidence. Miller was never charged with a Sunshine Law violation.
Based on this muddled interview, he was charged with perjury. He was convicted by a jury. He appealed. Even so, he was jailed immediately, pending both appeal and sentencing. Florida law allows release of convicted defendants pending appeal, but it is left to the judge’s discretion, and the judge apparently declined. Miller served a full 75 days in jail before the judge even sentenced him. He was sentenced to the time served, three years probation, community service and a fine.
You may wonder how this garbage could stand up on appeal. It didn’t. In a blistering seven page decision the Florida Court of Appeals unanimously not only vacated the conviction, but took the unusual step of ordering that the verdict be changed to not guilty.
An all Republican panel of the Florida Court of Appeals found that Miller never definitively claimed there were no phone calls with Search after January 2021. “Quite the contrary” declared the Court of Appeals:
“Miller’s statement viewed as a whole makes clear . . . the calls stopped between January and March 2021 or ‘somewhere in there.’ Miller even goes as far to acknowledge phone calls in March 2021 by saying, ‘Yes, I promise you we had phone calls.’”
The Florida Court of Appeals went on to suggest prosecutors deliberately cherry picked Miller’s words to find perjury where there was none:
“A charge of perjury may not be sustained by the device of lifting a statement of the accused out of its immediate context and thus giving it a meaning wholly different than that which its context clearly shows.”
Nice words, condemning the entire prosecution of a 72 year old man who has already served 75 days in jail for a crime he did not commit. For 75 days the state of Florida kept a political prisoner.
That’s not all Oren Miller lost. He also lost his job. By executive decree Governor Ron DeSantis removed him as County Commissioner when he was indicted.
If any of those responsible for this wrongful termination, for this wrongful prosecution, for this wrongful jailing of Mr. Miller, apologized, I am unaware of it.
I would like to make a few points.
- When I first read the Court of Appeals decision I realized it pointed to obvious flaws in the case. Flaws a competent, and non-corrupt, prosecution would have realized and accordingly never brought the case.
- When I first read the Court of Appeals decision I realized it pointed to obvious flaws in the case that should have led a competent, and non-corrupt, judge to promptly dismiss the case before trial.
- Not only did the judge not dismiss the case, he didn’t exercise his discretion to allow Miller to be free pending appeal, a routine thing to do. This smacks of, “we have to get the punishment in before the case is reversed on appeal.”
This entire sordid episode should be thoroughly investigated, to include whether this prosecution was brought due to pressure from officials at The Villages or Governor’s office. Miller has not yet stated whether he intends to sue for malicious prosecution. I hope he does, if only for the process of discovery.