The Murder of Lynne Friend

This case is finally going to the Grand Jury for indictment(s) this month.

I am so proud of my children and love them so much. Above is a photograph of my son, Garman, with his girlfriend Tess, which appeared in the Miami Herald last week.

The Murder of Lynne Friend

I got an email yesterday inquiring about this case. I will write here what I wrote in response, nobody has been arrested, I and the whole world would know if that had occurred. Obviously, no one tells me anything (or very little, anyway). Many months ago, after I had first started writing about the case on Public Occurrences, I got a call from the lead detective, John Butchko, an old friend. He told me he had offered to convey a message from Michael Von Zamft, the lead prosecutor, and Michael had told him to go ahead. The message was, and John put it nicely, to please not write about the case as it might jeopardize the investigation. This was back in the summer of 2010. John said he expected an arrest or arrests by September. I agreed, like an idiot, I mean, c'mon, after 17 years??? But, I agreed and told John I would let him know beforehand when I published anything else. I was steamed at myself for agreeing to that too. And then September came and...nothing. So I called John and told him I was going to write about the case again, he understood, and I wrote. That's the last thing I wrote and I never heard anything back from anyone in the S.A.O. or from M.D.P.D.

I do hope I can kick myself in the a** and continue writing about the case in the manner I envisioned, serially, and step-by-step, but I know myself and how much time that takes so I'm going to skip several intervening steps here. I was assigned this case as a prosecutor. This case was ready for presentation to the Grand Jury for Indictment in 2004 (maybe 2005, I don't remember). I prepared the Grand Jury memo, it had been signed off on, it was just a matter of scheduling (the Grand Jury only meets once a week) and then...And then.

And then I came into my office one morning and opened up my computer. I had an email from then lead detective Ramesh (Ram) Nyberg, saying that he and FDLE co-lead Ed Royal had been discussing, and had gotten the approval of their supervisors to tell me that they thought more investigation needed to be done, if I recall correctly, more witnesses needed to be interviewed. This was after I, with the approval of Ms. Rundle, had spent six months doing nothing but work with Nyberg and Royal on this one case. They had agreed with the decision to indict. They had each gotten copies of the Grand Jury memo. I remember Ram and I talking on the phone after we--we--had made the decision. Both of us were almost giddy that it was finally going to happen. And then they pulled the plug. The Miami-Dade Police Department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement simply pulled the plug.

Howard Pohl

Up until now I have concentrated my fire on Katherine Fernandez-Rundle rather than her underlings. She is the head Private First Class, she takes the credit, she should get the criticism. That has been the thinking. But the Howard Pohl situation has made me rethink that to some extent. Hitler had Eichmann, and Rundle has (or has had) Horn, Hoague, Arrojo, Salomon, Brill, Laeser, Griffith. And Pohl. We will now have a go at them.

I made a Public Records request for Howard Pohl's personnel file based partly on information I had received recently that Pohl had been forced out of the State Attorney's Office because of inappropriate conduct toward a female employee of the S.A.O; partly also because I wanted to see what Rundle/Horn/Brill/Salomon would provide--and what they wouldn't.

I received Pohl's personnel file recently. It was accompanied by the letter at top from Don Horn, the pertinent part of which is "we have redacted confidential exempt information pursuant to Florida law..."

That is a lie. Mr. Horn has redacted information that he, doing Private Rundle's bidding, does not want the public to know. I know that because there are some things I know (and that Horn/Rundle/Salomon, et al know I know) that by law they have to provide in response to a public records request that they have not provided. And have previously refused to provide.

One of those things is the "Mandarin Penthouse" email. One evening when I was dating Lorna Salomon she told me, in some distress, that she had received an inappropriate email from Howard Pohl. Salomon was then, and is now, the (Senior) Employment Counsel for the office. She had sent Pohl an email saying that they needed to discuss an issue related to an employee (if I ever knew who the employee was, I've forgotten). Pohl's response was, "Sure, Let's discuss it at the Mandarin Penthouse!"

I urged Salomon to report the incident. She did. She told me, I don't know whether it was the truth or not, that there was a major investigation as a result, that Rundle called in outside counsel and that the lawyers made it clear to Pohl in no uncertain terms (1) that the "Mandarin Penthouse" email was inappropriate, and (2) nothing of its sort would ever be tolerated again.

The "Mandarin Penthouse" email is not in Pohl's personnel file, nor is there any mention of the investigation, if it was ever conducted. About a year and a half ago I made a specific public records request for the email and directed it to Penny Brill. Her response was that she/the S.A.O. didn't have to turn it over pursuant to law. That is a lie. The State Attorney's Office has deliberately violated Florida's public records law in their responses to these two public records requests.

Why would Horn and Brill--for Rundle--do this? Why would they violate the law? To protect Howard Pohl? No. To protect Rundle. To protect Rundle from a lawsuit that she has tolerated a "hostile work environment" toward female employees. This is not the first time that similar accusations have been made against Pohl, and brought to Rundle's attention.

Howard Pohl

A couple of months ago I received a phone call. “Dave, have you heard anything about Howard Pohl?” (1) I had not. “Because I heard he is very sick with something and has been out indefinitely.” We commiserated together and I asked if my friend knew what hospital Mr. Pohl was in (Based on our conversation it sounded like whatever it was was serious enough to require hospitalization.). He did not. That was the substance of the conversation.

Sometime a little after that I ran into a person who works at the State Attorney’s Office and she also asked if I knew what was wrong with Mr. Pohl (I still did not). She had no idea and told me that the administration was being unusually tight-lipped even for them about the situation. I asked who was taking over Mr. Pohl’s responsibilities and she replied that Ted Manelli had agreed to come back part-time to help out. (2)

Recently I whisked by a prosecutor-friend in the hallways of the courthouse. “Hey.” “Hey.” “Good.” "Good.” Guys talk like that when they whisk. But this time we paused and came to a complete stop (Guys are often lost for additional conversational topics at these moments.). I reached into my vast repertoire of Topics of Conversation and pulled out a sure-fire winner: “How’s the money situation in the Office? (Such situation being the favorite subject of conversation of government employees, and the second favorite, and the third, and fourth.) “Tight. We’re really short-staffed.” (The money situation has been tight and the office has been short-staffed for twenty-eight years at least).

As my sure-fire winner Topic of Conversation was now exhausted and I felt my social anxiety begin to kick in and my mind begin to wander (A.D.D.) I again reached into my bag and asked “How’s Howard, I heard he was sick?” He gave me a look of “Are you a complete mo-ron,” and said, “Where have you been, David?” (this was said sotto voce with his face substantially closer to mine than when we were saying “Hey.” “Hey.” “Good.” “Good.”) Although I have been quite a number of places I knew that’s not what my friend meant (I’m intuitive like that) and so didn’t respond (verbally at least, maybe my face gave away “Lost.”). “They got rid of him.” My attention was now focused as a laser beam (Adderall). “Why, I thought…” “That’s what they’re putting out there. He was ‘inappropriate’ (his word and he did the “in quotes” hand gestures) with a girl…” At this point I interrupted and said “underling?” and my friend said, “Yeah, an underling.” That was an ambiguous word choice on my part because “underling” could mean a junior fellow prosecutor or a support staff member (not that it makes a difference). "Who took his place?" I asked. "Chet Zerlin." (3)

Notice to Readers.

This blog will continue the series Politics & Justice in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office formerly published on Public Occurrences, www.publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com. It will also continue what was previously published on my old blog www.transcriptsrecords.documents.blogspot.com. Instead of starting a new blog my intent was to re-start Transcripts. Alas, I do not know how, I can't log in to Transcripts, asked Google for Help! and they didn't.