She’s famous for hardball tactics, and now her campaign stands accused of attempting to shut out black voters.
No one sweated the long, hot summer of 2013 more than George Zimmerman — except, perhaps, the state attorney from Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit, Angela Corey, who had been handpicked by state attorney general Pam Bondi to prosecute the case. That was the nation’s first introduction to a prosecutor known for throwing the book at defendants — but also for her penchant for vendettas and courtroom tactics of dubious legality. Three years later, Corey is in for another long, hot summer. Her bid for a third term as state attorney in the Fourth Circuit is turning into one of Florida’s most contentious Republican primaries.
When Corey took over the Fourth Circuit State Attorney’s Office from her predecessor, five-term Democrat Harry Shorstein — who had fired Corey the previous year for “long-term issues” regarding her work as a supervisor — she purged it, eliminating one-fifth of the staff. Over the last seven-and-a-half years, strong-arm tactics have been Corey’s preferred m.o. She intimated she might bring libel charges against a local columnist who criticized her, used public-records laws to intimidate a former American Bar Association president who condemned her handling of a high-profile murder case, and threatened to sic a Florida investigator on Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz after he blasted her conduct in the Zimmerman case.
Some members of Jacksonville’s law-enforcement community knew what Corey’s election meant. Several lawyers left the office following her election, rather than serve under her. And who can blame them? Describing the workplace that developed under Corey’s leadership, one former investigator told National Review Online: “I’d never worked at a place where people were scared to talk to each other.”
Now Corey is fighting to keep control of Florida’s Fourth Circuit — and her latest ploy will surprise no one familiar with her tactics.
In early May, one day before the filing deadline, Melissa Nelson entered the race, following a months-long behind-the-scenes effort among power players in Jacksonville-area politics to challenge Corey. Nelson, a well-liked former prosecutor who worked under Corey’s predecessor, is already proving a formidable candidate: One week after her announcement, she was endorsed by the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund, which had never before involved itself in a Florida state-attorney race. And though she is a Republican, she also has the full support of Harry Shorstein.
Nelson’s entrance made the Republican primary a three-way race among Nelson, Corey, and Wes White, who is the former director of the Nassau County state attorney district office. (White represented IT director Ben Kruidbos in a suit against Corey; Kruidbos was fired shortly after he testified in the Zimmerman trial that Corey had withheld evidence obtained from Trayvon Martin’s cell phone.) At this point, no Democrat had filed to enter the race for state attorney in the Fourth Circuit, meaning that the Republican primary would have been open to all 760,000 Fourth Circuit voters.
But just hours after Nelson filed, so did someone else: Kenny Leigh, a “men only” Jacksonville divorce attorney who plans to run as a write-in candidate. Since write-in candidates do not have to formally qualify for the ballot, Leigh technically counts as an “opposition” candidate under Florida’s Universal Primary Amendment, and thus his entry closes the Republican primary to all but Republican voters. So the GOP primary will now be restricted to the 320,000 registered Republicans in the area — a marked electoral advantage for Corey, who has a strained relationship with Jacksonville’s black community, 96 percent of whom are Democrats or have no formal party affiliation. Just a coincidence? Hardly. Not only is Leigh “absolutely an Angela Corey supporter,” as he recently told the Florida Times-Union, and a donor to her campaign, but his paperwork was filed by Corey’s campaign manager, Alexander Pantinakis.
The Corey campaign maintains that it has done nothing wrong. Following a query from National Review Online, the Corey campaign provided the following statement:
The State Attorney’s Office continues to faithfully serve all citizens of Jacksonville with an unwavering commitment to justice, fairness, and public safety. The Florida Supreme Court has clearly ruled on the legal and ethical aspects of write-in candidacies. I look forward to continuing to serve the citizens of Jacksonville with integrity, a strong record of fighting crime, and our ongoing tireless advocacy for victims and their families.
Meanwhile, Pantinakis has said that he assisted Leigh in his capacity as a Republican state committeeman, not as Corey’s campaign manager, and Corey herself has said that she did not know until after the fact that Pantinakis had been involved in Leigh’s filing to enter the race. She has also effectively excused the scheme, suggesting during a debate with the Fourth Circuit’s public defender, Matt Shirk, that because voters can change their party affiliation until late June, “people who care won’t be disenfranchised.”
A civil suit requesting that the primary be reopened to all voters, on the grounds that Leigh’s is a ‘sham’ candidacy, is currently under review.
A civil suit requesting that the primary be reopened to all voters, on the grounds that Leigh’s is a “sham” candidacy, is currently under review by Fourth Circuit judge James Daniel. In Corey’s (meager) defense, arranging write-in candidates in order to close primaries has become a commonplace in Florida. But even if Corey’s shenanigans are ruled legal, they are a clear indication of her less-than-scrupulous approach to professional ethics. And there’s likely to be much more where that came from. In July 2014, Charles E. Welch Jr., who worked as an investigator in the Fourth Circuit State Attorney’s Office from 1998 to 2012, made public a letter he penned to Florida governor Rick Scott about the work environment under Corey, and the complaint he filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Welch alleged not only instances of gross incompetence among Corey’s investigators, but also unethical or flatly illegal conduct for which investigators, including one supervisor, should have faced termination and possibly even legal action.
Corey’s office disputes Welch’s claims, but while NRO could confirm certain of them, all of the former investigators interviewed declined to talk except on condition of anonymity, several citing concerns of retaliation. (Several people declined to speak altogether.) Needless to say, the Fourth Circuit’s chief prosecutor has not cultivated an atmosphere around her that encourages transparency and accountability.
On August 30, Florida voters will decide whether to give Corey another term, and she is projecting confidence: “There’s not a thing they can throw at us that we can’t say is legal, moral, and ethical,” she declared last month. But her eight years in office suggest otherwise.