by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
She had on white tennis shoes and was admittedly tired. But, Angela Corey was running on adrenaline Wednesday afternoon, a little over 24 hours after she was sworn in as State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit.
She didn’t have any furniture in her office yet, so Corey was operating out of her new conference room on the 14th floor of the Courthouse Annex. She was working on a laptop with at least a dozen “please call” messages scattered about. Over the course of the next half hour several employees and members of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office stopped to bring Corey something or simply welcome the new State Attorney.
The Corey era had begun and it was beginning to sink in, but just a little.
“I am so enthralled with the working aspect of it, the other parts haven’t sunk in yet,” said Corey, who defeated former Chief Assistant State Attorney Jay Plotkin in November. “I am so excited about the chance to work with all these great people. Yesterday when I walked in, it caught my breath at the magnitude of the situation.”
The people Corey’s referring to are the office’s prosecutors and support staff. And, many of them were previously employed by former State Attorney Harry Shorstein. The notion that Corey “cleaned house” is false, she says.
“I don’t know where that’s coming from,” she said.
Corey explained there are 100 attorneys in the office right now and she’d like to add 10 before the end of the year. A majority of those prosecutors worked for Shorstein, as well.
“Five of them did not reapply and that includes Mr. Plotkin. The other 95 all asked to keep their jobs and we brought back 86,” said Corey.
Aside from setting up her office, Corey said her short-term goal is to consolidate the office. Right now, she says, the attorneys, support staff and investigators are in various locations Downtown including the building owned by attorney Eddie Farah. Corey says there is more than enough room to move everyone into the Annex.
One of the first issues Corey had to deal with was the current caseload. She said her attorneys were in court Tuesday morning, just minutes after being sworn in. Some of those cases were left over, others were new.
Corey got elected, in part, with the help of the JSO and the Fraternal Order of Police. She’s still close with the police but vows to be tough on any officer that oversteps their legal boundary.
“I have been teaching constitutional law and search and seizure for 26 years,” she said. “I am not going to make a ruling on a case in contradiction to what I have been teaching for 26 years.”
Sheriff John Rutherford said he’s looking forward to working with Corey and her staff that includes Chief Assistant Dan McCarthy and State Rep. Mike Weinstein.
“She will take strong measures to eliminate the criminal element, in particular the gun toters,” he said. “She will not plead down cases and there will not be a revolving door. We have got to stop the gun toters from killing people.”
Rutherford also said he thinks his officers are looking forward to the new administration in the office.
“I think they are very excited about Angela taking office,” he said. “They worked hard to help her attain the office. They put their lives on the line to make arrests and she will make sure the gun-toting felons are held accountable to the system.”
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