Monroe County Sheriff’s Office wants everyone to know criminals will be held accountable

Adam Linhardt, director of Media Relations with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county. 

Sheriff Rick Ramsay is attending the National Sheriff’s Assocation meeting. 

Linhardt said, “He was out joining some of our other ranking command staff for the Florida law enforcement, corrections re-accreditation, which we also maintained our Excelsior status. So a big part of the sheriff’s philosophy, big part of the professionalism and working with community and all those important things the sheriff really pushes up from the top all the way to the bottom. Very happy to report that, as I know, the sheriff is and we’ll be putting more information out to public to let everybody know, kind of just how important that is, but he’s a busy guy these days.”

A man was arrested for illegal dumping of garbage near 20th Street in Marathon recently. 

Linhardt said, “This is, I believe, the third man to be arrested in about a week in that general area for illegal dumping, littering, things of that nature and now there’s basically an illegal campsite, for lack of a better phrase, set up there. I know there’s some new state laws coming into effect, and some issues about jurisdictional things that have been discussed routinely. But as far as the sheriff’s office is concerned, if you’re out there and you’re violating the law, we’re going to hold you accountable, and one of the ways to do that is just to make sure that these folks, primarily homeless folks, in that area, are not destroying the environment and this is a testament to that. Again, this is the third man in about two weeks in that same area for just, essentially just leaving their stuff everywhere, in terms of food, debris, water bottles, clothes, other garbage, mattresses and things of that nature. So we will be out there continually on 20th Street. I know that our Marathon captain, Middle Keys captain, is upping patrols in that area from Lieutenant all the way down to make sure that folks in that area know that we’re keeping an eye on that area and that if they violate the law again, we’re going to hold them accountable.”

There were also two separate drug trafficking arrests recently. One, a Homestead man was trafficking 29.3 grams for cocaine. Another man from Wilton Manor, Florida, was charged with conspiracy to traffic methamphetamine and use of a two way communications device. 

Linhardt said, “Both of these were picked up on warrants over the weekend. It’s my understanding. It’s interesting that I’ll be putting some more information out about this, one of these cases today, one of the suspects, I believe the suspect out of Homestead who had a warrant for trafficking I believe about 29 or so grams of cocaine. Well, I think he had about little more than close to 50 grams of cocaine when we picked him up on that warrant. So this is somebody that is active in the industry, as they say, and he’s going to be facing a lot more charges. So a shout out to our special investigations team, the guys and gals who work those cases. They’re hard cases, and I know, just from reading the reports here in the shop that a lot of nights spent in cars, just weird hours. It takes a lot of professionalism and commitment to do that kind of job and make sure that these folks are held accountable. So I want to recognize them, but yeah, absolutely, there’s probably going to some more charges on down the line, I would say, unfortunately, but maybe fortunately, and we’ll see what happens. Again, they’ve got to make their way through State Attorney’s Office and the court system. But trafficking is no small drug charge, so these will be pretty big cases going forward.”

A man was recently charged with unfulfilled fishing charters. 

Linhardt said, “Again, I have to give a shout out to our detectives. One of these cases, I get some phone calls sometimes from folks who say, well, that probably happens all the time. Is it a big deal? As the sheriff, often says, well, we want to educate folks and let them know. Yeah, it is a big deal. If you commit these kinds of fraud crimes, that we’re going to do everything we can to hold you accountable and get you into Sheriff Ramsay’s Bed and Breakfast over here on Stock Island. This is a classic case of that, where we brought the initial charges down, then I’m not sure the specifics of what happened, but it sounds like some other folks came forward, and now this suspect is looking at some additional grand theft charges and organized fraud charges, and again, not sure the specifics of everything, of what was going on in his mind and how he was operating this fraud scheme. But now he’s looking at grand theft organized fraud charges on what may have been a perhaps a petty theft or a petty theft case initially. So unfortunately for him, that’s what happens essentially, when you take people’s money and don’t perform the service, and again, it is another one going forward through the criminal justice system, into the court system and the state attorney’s office. I’ll be watching fairly closely, just because I’m curious to see how many more folks come forward. Again, on the educational front, we want to let people know, regardless of what industry you’re in, if you’re committing fraud, we’re going to hold you accountable and unfortunately for this defendant, he is getting a good dose of that today.”

A recent DUI case also saw child abandonment charges. 

Linhardt said, “That was multiple DUI charges. You have the your standard DUI, and then the DUI causing property damage, a DUI with a person under 18, child neglect, resisting arrest, because he just refused to acknowledge that he was being arrested and didn’t want to get in one of our police cars. So a lot of charges for somebody who it sounds like is leaving a bar, restaurant area, screeching his tires, making a scene. Enough of a scene for for folks to acknowledge, hey, this guy’s driving kind of crazy with a child in the car, and before you know it, boom, crashed into a Corvette of all vehicles. So another strike against this defendant. I’m sure that that Corvette owner is going to want some restitution in some way going forward, but there were some injuries to the child. I think the child lost a tooth from from the crash, but no life threatening injuries is the main thing there, again, we had a child involved, which is kind of a ridiculous case, that somebody be driving that way with a child, and then the child’s injured. But happily, we can at least say at the end here that it looks like there was no life threatening injuries going forward.”