A day after state Attorney General Pam Bondi pointed to a massive backlog of untested rape kits, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday it will provide $41 million in grants to help address the issue across the country — including a nearly $2 million grant in Northeast Florida.
The $1.995 million grant will go to the State Attorney’s Office in the 4th Judicial Circuit, which includes Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, according to information from the Department of Justice. “For anyone who has felt isolated and afraid, for anyone that has lost faith or lost hope as a result of a sexual crime, this is our pledge to you: We will not forget you,’’ U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a prepared statement. “We will not abandon you.” Bondi held a news conference Wednesday in Tampa and said Florida has thousands of untested rape kits.
She and other authorities say collecting evidence such as DNA from rape kits could help solve cold cases and catch sexual predators. During the news conference, Bondi called for an increase in funding for crime labs.
Chamber gives boost to Scott committee
Gov. Rick Scott’s “Let’s Get to Work” political committee collected $482,600 in contributions during August, with $400,000 of that coming from a Florida Chamber of Commerce PAC, according to a newly filed finance report.
Let’s Get to Work, which has continued to play an important role after helping Scott win re-election in 2014, spent $100,131 last month, with much of the money going to consulting and media-production expenses.
The committee had nearly $682,000 in available cash as of Aug. 31, the report shows. Meanwhile, a political committee tied to state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam raised $162,050 during August, bringing its overall contribution total to $2.07 million since being formed early this year.
The committee, known as “Florida Grown,” spent $84,862 last month and had spent an overall total of $460,205.
Putnam cannot seek another term as agriculture commissioner but is widely expected to run for governor in 2018.
More policies targeted for shift out of Citizens Insurance
The state continues to squeeze policies out of Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced Thursday that up to 184,500 Citizens policies will be made available in November to six private insurance carriers through what is known as the “takeout” process.
A total of 181,909 personal-residential policies and 2,591 commercial-residential policies will offered to Anchor Property & Casualty, Heritage Property & Casualty, Safepoint Insurance, United Property & Casualty Insurance, Weston Insurance and Southern Oak Insurance.
Not counting “takeouts” set for late October and November, the state had made 713,336 Citizens policies available through the process this year.
Policies that are not moved into the private market in any “takeout” period are often offered again.
So far, 141,647 policies have been removed. Of those, at least 34,000 policies are in areas considered coastal, said Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier.
A reason for the overall low turnover is that private insurers typically select the least-risky policies to remove from the state-backed Citizens.
Also, policyholders are allowed to reject takeout offers. Citizens had 598,456 policies as of July 31.
The overall Citizens policy count is a considerable drop from a high of 1.5 million policies in 2012, when Gov. Rick Scott pushed to scale back the agency by putting more homeowners into private coverage.