I-Team: Rundle Removes Rivera Prosecutor
MIAMI (CBS4) - Miami Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle is dramatically scaling back the resources her office is dedicating to the investigation of Congressman David Rivera, CBS4 News has learned.
Late last week, Rundle ordered Assistant State Attorney Richard Scruggs removed from the case, even though Scruggs is the most experienced public corruption prosecutor in the office. She also sidelined Robert Fielder, a highly-respected investigator, and Christine Zahralban, a prosecutor who specializes in researching and litigating complex criminal issues.
Rundle has also decided that her office will no longer take the lead role in investigating the case - opting instead to turn the politically sensitive matter over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Her office would support FDLE's efforts.
"It's very disappointing," said one senior law enforcement official. Another law enforcement source described Rundle's actions as "disgraceful."
Rundle did not return calls seeking her comment. A spokesman for Rundle said she decided to let FDLE take the lead because FDLE had opened its own file on Rivera a couple of weeks before Scruggs started his investigation at the State Attorney's Office.
Rundle's aides also maintained the Miami-Dade Police Department's public corruption unit, which had been working on the Rivera case with Scruggs, would phase out of the case "in the next few weeks" and that they were turning over all of their materials to FDLE.
But sources within the Miami Dade Police Department said that even though Rundle was trying to push them off of the Rivera investigation they were going to continue to work the case with FDLE.
It is an amazing turn of events in a case that has been building for weeks.
As CBS4 News first reported, prosecutors have been investigating more than half a million dollars in secret payments from the owners of Flagler Dog Track to a company owned by Congressman David Rivera's mother and godmother.
And this past Sunday, CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald reported prosecutors were widening their investigation to include Rivera's campaign expenditures, including thousands of dollars that went to his mother's firm and another $75,000 went to the daughter of one of legislative aides.
And yet just when it seemed that the Rivera investigation was heating up, Rundle has dramatically cut both manpower and resources. Late last week, Rundle ordered Scruggs, Zahralban, and Fielder off the case.
Scruggs has more experience prosecuting public corruption cases than anyone else in Rundle's office. A former head of the U.S. Attorney's public corruption unit he is responsible for some of the biggest cases in South Florida including the prosecution of Yahweh Ben Yahweh, Art Teele and Michelle Spence-Jones.
A spokesman for Rundle maintained that Assistant State Attorney Joe Centorino, who remains on the Rivera investigation, is more than capable to handle the case. Centorino is the head of the Miami Dade State Attorney Office's public corruption unit and has been with the office for more than 20 years. He was responsible for the prosecutions of Miami Dade County Commissioners Bruce Kaplan and Miriam Alonso.
Centorino late Wednesday said he found it "insulting" that anyone would think his approach would be anything less than aggressive.
Scruggs could not be reached for comment.
When Scruggs joined the Miami Dade State Attorney's Office in 2003, Rundle hired him in part to quiet her critics who complained she was weak on public corruption cases.
"My critics can say what they want, but I'll match my record on corruption against any prosecutor," Rundle told the Miami Herald in 2003. "I brought Richard Scruggs in to join the team because I am tough on public corruption, and I have been and will continue to be tough on public corruption."
But now Rundle will have to answer those questions all over again after removing Scruggs from what could have been her office's most important public corruption case in more than a decade.
