by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Over the course of doing interviews and covering various aspects of the Sexual Assault Division of the State Attorney’s Office, it was impossible to not be touched by the cases and the people that prosecute them.
While the crimes are heinous and vulgar and the attorneys use language that would make a sailor blush, there’s an incredible sense of lightness, peace and harmony in the office. They enjoy their jobs because they enjoy advocating for their clients and putting criminals behind bars.
One victim
She was 12 years old and she and her 10-year-old brother were staying the night at an uncle’s house. He had recently moved back to town and was in the process of reconnecting with his family.
It was the middle of the night. She was asleep with her brother on a pull-out sofa. The bed starting shaking. Then it stopped.
She felt a sensation on her feet and fell back asleep. Thirty minutes later, the uncle was between the kids.
He was mauling her — all over. She was 12, he was 32.
The next morning, she told her mother. The uncle defiantly denied his actions. Her mother called the cops. He begged her to call them back and cancel the call.
He was arrested and charged with three counts: sexual battery, lewd and lascivious molestation and expelling bodily fluid on a minor.
Dec. 15 he was put on trial.
The office
The Sexual Assault Division is run by Alan Mizrahi. There are 11 assistant state attorneys and they handle a variety of cases: misdemeanor domestic violence, all crimes against children and civil commitments for sexual predators.
Misdemeanor domestic violence includes intimate partnerships in which there are legal obligations. That includes married couples, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends who have a child together and same-sex marriages.
“We do not deal with boyfriends and girlfriends who don’t live together,” said Mizrahi, who went to law school at the University of Miami. “If there’s a legal obligation, it’s harder to break up.”
Crimes against children include sexual abuse, physical abuse, felony domestic violence, child pornography and failure to register as a sexual offender.
The sexual predator division was created in part because the passage of the Jimmy Ryce Law. In 1995, 9 year-old Ryce was abducted and murdered in Miami by a convicted sexual predator. Mizrahi said those offenders are committed to “a hospital they cannot get out of” if the State can prove they are likely to commit the crime again. Often, the State will seek to have the offender committed to the specialized hospital after their prison sentences are up.
But, the attorneys need help from a source that may not be willing to come forward — never mind relive the nightmare that changed their lives forever.
“Those cases are very interesting in that you have to regurgitate old cases,” said Mizrahi. “You may have a rape victim from 1980 who’s rapist is getting out of prison and you want them to testify again.”
Many of the defendants appear as if they simply don’t care about anything. They don’t care where they are and they don’t care what they are doing. There is some mental instability, the rest is pure sicko.
Mizrahi said recently he had a defendant removed from the courtroom because the bailiff caught him masturbating.
“We are dealing with some very sick individuals in that unit and some old cases,” he said.
Why SAD?
“These victims are the most vulnerable and they are in need of the most compassion and understanding,” said Mizrahi. “I like doing that. Murders are fun, but you cannot hug the victim when it’s over. The stress is great and you see horrific things. But, the outcome can be good.”
Deena Bateh has been with the SAO for over two years but joined the SAD in May.
“I came to the State Attorney’s Office always wanting to be in this division,” said Bateh, who graduated from Stetson Law School. “I think this special unit has the most community service feel to it. It’s the only unit that really deals with children and it has that counselor approach. I wanted to be a marriage/family counselor.”
Joni Poitier has been with the office since 2006 and the SAD for a little over a year.
“I feel like everybody in our office does great work,” said Poitier, who went to law school at Vanderbilt. “In felony, property crimes are important, but less personal.”
Poitier said murders are horrific, but the crimes she and Bateh and the rest of the division see committed against children are another level of absurd.
“Their souls are dead,” said Bateh.
“This lives with them forever,” said Poitier. “Unfortunately, we see a lot of assaults as children and they become the assaulter. The victim comes back as the predator.”
Because so many sexual assaults on children are committed by family members or someone close to the child — uncles, fathers, older brothers and stepbrothers, cousins, stepfathers and boyfriends of the mother — trials evolve to entire families being put on the stand directly or indirectly. Guilt means the perpetrator goes to jail, but there are repercussions.
“That aspect is particularly hard,” said Bateh. “You get a conviction and the trial is over and as your job ends their hell begins. Family units are completely destroyed. Mom does not believe her daughter and now they go back home and no one believes the victim. It’s a lose-lose.
“You have to truly love the work to do it, but it’s not a celebratory victory.”
Bateh and Poitier tried the case that started this story.
Coping with the job
Mizrahi is a family man and his escape is sports.
“I coach,” he said. “I can take a deposition and 45 minutes later be at the baseball field. If you do this long enough, it doesn’t bother you. Now, I just want to get the perps. It’s the overwhelmingness of the work that’s the stresser, not the cases.”
Poitier admits she takes the job home with her mentally — it’s virtually impossible not to. But, there are no fits of rage or gym sessions beating the hell out of a punching bag.
“It doesn’t affect me and Deena as much because we don’t have children,” she said. “I do not see doing this for a significant amount of time. Doing this, I think the worst of people. We see the worst, sickest, most unimaginable stuff. It’s disgusting. My dad’s a psychologist and he worries about me.
“The light stuff is my out. I like light and airy TV. It takes my mind somewhere else.”
“Our supervisors always ask if we are OK or if we want to move. But, if you ask everyone on the floor, everyone loves it,” said Bateh, who also admits she takes the job home and looks at people with a wary eye. “I can’t but look at strangers and wonder what goes on behind closed doors. I am very sensitive by nature and I thought this would affect me more. Alan keeps things as light as possible.”
Poitier and Bateh do differ on the burn-out factor associated with prosecuting sexual assault crimes.
“I think there is a time limit and I feel like when I get there I will know it. It feels good to put the sickest behind bars for life,” said Poitier.
“I don’t feel like I am getting burned out,” said Bateh. “I feel like I am doing what I am supposed to do.”
Going before Drake
The defendant –– a different one faces different charges –– sat shackled at the wrists and ankles. He stared unblinking at the two assistant state attorneys who were
looking to put him away for at least a year, boring holes into them.
He’d glance away for a moment, then stare some more — fists clenched, biting his lip. His anger was palpable.
“That’s a bad guy,” said Phyllis Wiley, another attorney in Mizrahi’s division.
The defendant had a rap sheet and was currently incarcerated. His new problems started Thanksgiving Day when he violated probation. His rap sheet includes aggravated domestic assault and he’d been ordered to stay away from the victim.
He was at the hospital with her — he’d put her there — when the police arrested him.
“These new charges disturb me,” said County Court Judge Pauline Drake.
After a conference between Wiley, her partner, the defense attorney and Drake, the defendant pled no-contest and got 12 months in jail. If he’d rolled the dice and lost in court, he would have gotten at least two consecutive 12-month terms.
“No victim contact means no victim contact,” Drake half-preached, half-threatened. “No telephone calls from jail to the victim. No visits by the victim. No third-party contact.”
Wiley said she’d call the victim to explain the situation.
Next client.
Trial preparations
Amazingly, the mother of the victim at the beginning of this story allowed the reporter to sit in as Bateh and Poitier walked the entire family through the trial process. We met in the Courthouse Annex, then walked over to Courtroom 9 where Circuit Court Judge Charles Arnold presides. Both the victim and her brother sat in the witness stand, answered practiced questions from Bateh and practiced coming across clearly.
It’s a sweet family, the kids are terrific and they didn’t ask for this.
The verdict
Guilty on all three counts.
Jan. 21 Arnold will sentence him, Bateh says, to somewhere between nine and 30 years and he’ll be designated a sexual predator forever.
Jail may not be very pleasant.
“The mother of the victim was overcome with relief and was in tears when the verdict was read,” said Bateh. “Like we talked to you (the reporter) about, it’s still a lose-lose situation for the family because of the rift that’s inevitably created in these cases. But, just knowing that the jury believed her daughter is what was so important to her and that her daughter’s predator will finally be held accountable.
“For us, it’s comforting knowing he is no longer on the streets and no longer a threat to his female family members.”
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