Monique H.

Worrell
State Attorney
Ninth Judicial Circuit
Orange and Osceola County, Florida

March 9, 2023

Sent Via U.S. Mail and Electronic Mail: ryan.newman@eog.myflorida.com

Mr. Ryan D. Newman
General Counsel
Office of the Governor
The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

Mr. Newman:
Our office is in receipt of your correspondence dated February 28, 2023. The unfounded
assertions and conclusions in your letter are certainly disappointing and quite frankly,
irresponsible. The suggestion that our office’s “policies” promote crime are empty political
statements not supported by facts. These misleading claims pose a danger to our community, which
is being intentionally misled by this political fear mongering.
During State Attorney Worrell’s administration, law enforcement arrested Keith Moses on
a single case in November 2021—a misdemeanor possession of cannabis charge (4.6 grams). The
Orange County Sherriff’s Office did not submit any evidence to our office to sufficiently prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Moses was in possession of illegal cannabis. Specifically,
when Governor DeSantis executed Senate Bill 1020 (2019) amending the legal definition of
cannabis to require a minimum of 0.3% of THC,1 prosecutors statewide were unable to file charges
for cannabis possession without a test confirming illegal amounts of cannabis.2 Therefore, my
office could not pursue charges in this case.
Further, it is irrational to assert that the State Attorney should have filed charges against
Mr. Moses because the incident involved a deputy witnessing a firearm being thrown from the
passenger side of the vehicle. The arrest affidavit indicated that the Sheriff’s Office did not know

1
See June 9, 2021 Updated FDLE Policy and accompanying correspondence: “%THC Threshold Testing
Submission Guidelines for Seized Drugs.” (Attachment A).
2
See Williams, M. (July 18, 2019) “Florida’s New Hemp Law is Changing How Seminole, Brevard
Prosecutors Handle Marijuana Crimes,” The Orlando Sentinel; Pantazi, A. (Aug. 8, 2019) “Florida
Legalized Hemp. Now Prosecutors Are Dropping Marijuana Charges and Retiring Dogs,” The Palm Beach
Post; July 30, 2019 Correspondence from State Attorney Jack Campbell, Second Circuit, to Law
Enforcement stating, “To conclude, this Office will no longer be charging people with possession of
cannabis absent a confession to what the substance is or testing by a lab that can meet the evidentiary
standards I have laid out.” (Composite Attachment B).

415 North Orange Avenue – P.O. Box 1673 – Orlando, Florida 32801
407-836-2400
who possessed the firearm and would be doing further investigation. In fact, the deputy on the
scene indicated in November 2021 that the firearm would be sent for DNA testing to identify who
possessed the firearm. However, that testing was never done. It was not until after the tragic
shooting, when the media inquired about the DNA testing of the firearm, that the Sheriff’s Office
finally sent the firearm for testing. Because the Sheriff’s Office never presented our office with
sufficient evidence for the prosecution of possession of a firearm, no charges were filed.
State Attorney Worrell has reviewed each case involving Mr. Moses and stands behind
every decision made with respect to his juvenile and adult dispositions. While it is convenient to
assess blame on our office, the reality is that there is nothing in Mr. Moses’ history that would
have predicted that he would commit a mass murder. The only means to reduce the likelihood of
mass shootings in the future is to enact responsible gun laws that would restrict the amount of
firearms that are freely accessible to the public. As such, we would urge the Governor to reconsider
his permitless carry legislation, as it would only increase the likelihood of mass shootings in the
future.
Regarding your request for information, we have gathered the information sought on page
2 of your correspondence.3 With respect to your last bulleted item, it is unrealistic for the
information requested to be provided within the requested timeframe. Specifically, in order to
gather this information, our office would have to pull every case “not prosecuted,” which would
include all cases received in our office by law enforcement that were not filed, as well as cases
that were filed on, and later dropped for any myriad of reasons. Since the request is not limited as
to time, we would necessarily need to go back as far as our case management system would allow,
which would pull cases from the administrations of Lawson Lamar, Jeff Ashton, Aramis Ayala
and State Attorney Worrell. Of those cases, we would have to determine which of those were
felony cases and violation of probation cases. Of those cases, we would then have to individually
research each defendant to determine the existence of any criminal history, which could include
anything from a serious felony conviction to a single prior arrest. We estimate that a project of this
magnitude would include over 350,000 cases, each of which would require an individual search
and review of potentially lengthy criminal histories. Assuming conservatively that each case

3
These records are provided to the Governor under Article IV; Section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution via
a secured Share Point link that will be forwarded via email. Please download these records as soon as
possible as the link has an expiration date of approximately two weeks. Florida Statute §985.04 allows this
agency to release the name, photograph, address and crime or arrest report of a minor taken into custody
by law enforcement for a violation of law which, if committed by an adult, would be a felony. Therefore,
the only juvenile records permitted for release or disclosure to the public are Mr. Moses’ felony arrest
records. For your ease of reference, a separate folder titled as “Moses Juvenile Felony Arrest Reports” has
been included in the documents provided. These records have already been appropriately redacted for any
confidential/exempt information should you choose to provide them to the public. All other records and
information in Ms. Moses’ juvenile files, including all case notes, emails, filings, case dispositions and
other records related to those cases, remain confidential from release to the public. Mr. Moses’ adult cases,
21-MM-8013 and 23-CF-002486, as well as portions of the statistical reports provided, are permitted to be
released to the public, absent any confidential and/or exempt information contained therein, which must be
redacted by your office prior to any release to the public (e.g., Social Security numbers, active criminal
investigative information, work-product, eyewitness to murder, etc.).

415 North Orange Avenue – P.O. Box 1673 – Orlando, Florida 32801
407-836-2400
would take 10 minutes to retrieve and review, the total amount of time would take 52,500 hours
or 6,300 eight-hour working days. At a $15/hr clerical staff salary, the cost of this production
would be approximately $800,000 of taxpayer dollars. We assume that this was not the result your
request intended.
Nonetheless, so that the Governor may be able to more accurately understand the
operations of this office, we have identified all felony cases from this administration and past
administrations to determine, of those, what percentage of cases were dropped by each
administration. As you will see in the spreadsheet attached for your reference,4 the percentages are
comparable for each administration, and Ms. Worrell’s rate of dropping felony cases is within 1%
percent of the other prior administrations.5 If the Governor would like to request any additional
information on a specific case or cases, we are willing to provide such information upon request
within a reasonable time period.
Despite the language of your request, it appears that the information the Governor is truly
seeking is whether our office has any formal or informal policies on dropping criminal cases for
specific reasons. We are aware that our local law enforcement agencies and former prosecutors
are being asked to identify and report any such policies in our office. The State Attorney
appreciates having the opportunity to answer this question directly. There are no such policies.
Each case in this office is reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine whether enough evidence
exists to prove a case beyond, and to the exclusion of, every reasonable doubt, as required by
Florida law and the Constitution.
In your letter, you claim to seek, “valuable lessons from this heartbreaking event … to
determine if Mr. Moses was enabled by gaps in our sentencing laws that must be corrected, or
[our] office’s failure to properly administer justice.” There are absolutely gaps in our sentencing
laws for juveniles who commit violent crime that must be corrected. In fact, State Attorney
Worrell has proposed several viable solutions to these gaps in her legislative proposals that can be
addressed and enacted in this 2023 legislative session.6
If the Governor’s intentions were truly to inquire about a failure to “administer justice” in
this matter, then it begs the question why he selectively and publicly solicited information from
our office, without also publicly soliciting any information from the Sheriff’s Office regarding
their self-proclaimed “misstep” in neglecting to test the firearm in 2021. The only logical
conclusion is that the Governor is not concerned about failures to properly “administer justice”
unless it pertains to an elected Democrat who is not politically aligned with his philosophies.
Nonetheless, our office remains committed to public safety by vigorously prosecuting this
case and doing everything within our power to hold the offender accountable and provide justice
to the victims, the families who have lost loved ones, and all those affected by this tragic shooting.

4
See Spreadsheet of Dropped Felony Cases (Attachment C).
5
With the exception of Aramis Ayala whose last year in office was impacted by court shutdowns due to
Covid.
6
See Juvenile Justice Proposed Legislation (Attachment D).

415 North Orange Avenue – P.O. Box 1673 – Orlando, Florida 32801
407-836-2400
 Sincerely,

Kamilah L. Perry
Executive Director/ General Counsel

415 North Orange Avenue – P.O. Box 1673 – Orlando, Florida 32801
407-836-2400