Miami judge Victoria Brennan has formally resigned. Photo courtesy of New York Daily News.
Summary: A Miami judge has resigned after allegations that she smashed a 20-year-old’s truck windshield.
Miami-Dade judge Victoria Brennan will no longer be on the bench after December 31. The circuit judge formally resigned in a letter to Governor Rick Scott after she was caught in a scandal involving her, a metal pipe, and a 20-year-old’s truck.
“Serving as a judge has been a very memorable experience, and I appreciate very much the fact that I had the opportunity to serve in this way,” Brennan wrote in her resignation letter.
Brennan, 54, declined to mention why she was resigning, although local media had speculated she would based off of her violent and embarrassing actions this summer.
According to the Miami Herald, Brennan lost her cool on June 28 when she arrived at her Key Largo home and found her son’s three friends drinking there. She and the boys got into a heated exchange full of profanities, and then she escalated to smashing the windshield of 20-year-old Victor Garcia’s truck. A few days later, a local judge signed an arrest warrant, calling for her to be brought in for criminal mischief.
But the judge escaped arrest. Brennan was on vacation when the deputies came for her, and her defense lawyer reportedly convinced Garcia not to prosecute in exchange for money. The investigation was handed over to Lee County prosecutors, and they decided not to pursue the case.
Brennan’s windshield incident was almost buried until the Miami Herald ran a story on it in August. After that, the Public Defender asked for her recusal on several criminal cases, and her reputation as a criminal judge was marred for failing to disclose to the public about her personal criminal history.
“Generally speaking, a judge who has an arrest warrant out there has no business on the criminal bench. The judge should have asked to be reassigned so there wasn’t even the appearance of impropriety,” Michael Catalano, a local lawyer, told The Miami Herald.
Source: The Miami Herald
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