Cheap Shot. That’s the only term that comes to mind to adequately describe the politically-motivated criminal charge leveled by Broward State Attorney Mike Satz against Deerfield Beach Mayor Al Capellini on Dec. 12, 2008, a mere 29 days before candidate qualifying. The unstated purpose of Satz’s action was to saddle Capellini with a criminal charge that would, hopefully, cripple his reelection effort. I know a bit about prosecuting cases, having once served as an Assistant United States Attorney and I find Satz’s action both offensive and repugnant. My reasoning is very simple and is based on the “Affidavit to Arrest” sworn to by an investigator of the State Attorney’s Office on Dec. 11, 2008.

The usual purpose of such an affidavit is to state all of the evidence that justifies a finding of “probable cause” that a defendant has committed a criminal offense in order to support the issuance of an arrest warrant. In this affidavit, the investigator states that “Although the County website relating to platting advises that the platting process can take anywhere from three to 18 months, Mayor Capellini advised his client in a letter dated Mar. 5, 2003, that he estimated the process would take at least three to six months. He said that [his company, Atlantis Engineering] would do everything possible to expedite the process.”

The attempt by the investigator to mislead the judge into thinking that Capellini was going to somehow use his influence behind the scenes to expedite the approval process fails when one has an opportunity to review the actual results of the plat approval process. Capellini’s firm filed the plat application on Mar. 28, 2003 and it was approved by the City of Deerfield Beach in 77 days. What the investigator failed to include in his arrest affidavit is the fact that the plat was not approved by Broward County until Jun. 29, 2004, a total of 15 months for final approval by the County and well in excess of Capellini’s original optimistic estimate of three to six months for county approval. This plat was not actually recorded by Broward County until Feb. 9, 2005.

We have had a chance to review 75 plat applications filed in Deerfield Beach since Nov. 11, 1987 and the average time for approval by the city was 2.68 months. The 77 days it took the City to approve Capellini’s plat at issue here was 2.56 months. Any implication that Capellini improperly used his influence to expedite the approval process at either the City or the County is patently absurd.

Last, but not least, the State Attorney’s Office investigator also gratuitously threw into his sworn probable cause affidavit the fact that “Mayor Capellini declined to provide a statement.” The last time I checked , the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution still enables any defendant or even a potential defendant to have the absolute right to remain silent and to say absolutely nothing, just like Capellini did. To improperly infect the probable cause affidavit by inserting this information after having failed to provide the judge with the actual time of the plat approval process only proves how twisted and politically-motivated this charge really is. We also wonder whether Capellini’s Constitutional rights might have been trampled in the process.

The investigation of Capellini by Satz’s office commenced in April 2006, and involved interviews of numerous people and the review of hundreds of pages of documents and videotapes over the following 32 months. Rather than admitting that they had come up empty-handed, Satz opted to lodge this cheap shot charge against Capellini on Dec. 12, 2008 in order to affect the outcome of the Deerfield Beach mayoral election. Broward County State Attorney Mike Satz should be ashamed of himself and he should have the courage and the professionalism to dismiss this cheap shot charge and to refer the entire matter to the Florida Ethics Commission, where it belonged in the first place.

02-12-09