Florida Domestic Violence

February 27, 2013in Family Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

Miami-Dade human trafficking unit gets first conviction, sentence

A Miami Beach man who forced a slew of women into prostitution in South Florida and Nevada will spend 15 years in prison for beating and strangling one of them.
A judge on Tuesday sentenced Robert Burton, 34, who had been found guilty of domestic battery by strangulation, deriving support from prostitution, kidnapping and interfering with parental custody.
His conviction at trial was the first for Miami-Dade prosecutors’ Human Trafficking Unit, said State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. She said many of the victims are homegrown runaways.
“It’s very much like domestic violence. It’s control. It’s terror. It’s beating,” she said. “It’s affection — with torture.”
At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Burton forced at least six women into prostitution all while fathering several children with three of them. He faced similar charges in Nevada, but was not convicted in that state.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/26/3255339/miami-dade-human-trafficking-unit.html#storylink=cpy

February 13, 2013in Family Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

Women dance at New World Center and FIU campus against abuse

Miami Beach police detective Traci Sierra has seen a lot to anger and confound her in the 13 years she has worked in the violent crimes and domestic violence unit. Women who stay with husbands or boyfriends through years of beatings and abuse. Women who call police for help and then attack the officer arresting the man who was hurting them. Women afraid to stay, but even more afraid to leave. Women killed because they believe the man hurting them will stop on his own.
But Sierra takes heart from her occasional successes, like the young woman with a 2-year-old son who finally left her boyfriend after he beat her head against the floor so hard he split her forehead open. Sierra sat with her for two hours before the girl broke down crying, saying “I have to do something.’ ”
“You have to come to a breaking point,” Sierra says. “You have to say enough is enough. If no one takes a stand it continues. Until they address the situation and take control of their lives nothing’s going to change.”
On Thursday, Sierra and hundreds of other women in Miami-Dade will take a symbolic stand at the New World Center and Florida International University campus to say enough is enough. They are doing so as part of a global campaign called One Billion Rising, which aims to get a billion people — the number of women the United Nations estimates will be raped or assaulted in their lifetime — to take action with flash mobs, protests and dances.

February 5, 2013in Family Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Uncategorized

New Hampshire Domestic Violence Bill Would Weaken Existing Laws

“The New Hampshire House Criminal Justice Committee will hear two bills on Tuesday that would prevent a law enforcement officer from arresting a domestic abuser unless the officer witnesses the abuse occurring, or a victim files a formal criminal complaint with the court.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/new-hampshire-domestic-violence_n_2618152.html

January 23, 2013in Federal Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

Closing Arguments in the Rilya Wilson Murder Case

Friends puzzled by the disappearance of the little girl. State child welfare administrators stunned at the vanishing of the 4-year-old foster child. A slew of police investigators dispatched to work the case.
A pathetic shell of a woman, cowed by an older lover into keeping her silence. Three prison inmates — one an eccentric con with a long rap sheet — who said they learned the truth about the crime while behind bars.
For eight weeks, these were the witnesses who testified against Geralyn Graham, who is accused of murdering foster child Rilya Wilson more than a decade ago. And on Tuesday, their photos adorned an eight-foot-long timeline poster board, suspended from the ceiling by chains of paper clips as a Miami-Dade prosecutor weaved each of their stories into a chilling. if circumstantial. narrative.
Graham, driven by festering hatred for little rambunctious Rilya, smothered the girl with a pillowcase, disposed of her body and for years concocted a web of “fanciful” tales to hide the crime, the state said.
“Lies, deceit and coverup,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Joshua Weintraub told jurors during closing arguments.
The arguments come more than a decade after Rilya disappeared, a case that rocked the Florida Department of Children & Families, which for 18 months did not realize the girl was missing. Authorities never found Rilya’s body.

January 18, 2013in Family Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

Fla. man bites off girlfriend's thumb during fight

Police in central Florida say a man bit off his girlfriend’s left thumb during a fight while he was driving her to work at Taco Bell.
Florida Today reports that hospital officials called police after the woman arrived for treatment Wednesday.
Palm Bay police spokeswoman Yvonne Martinez says 35-year-old Ricardo Marquis Davis confessed to biting off the thumb and spitting it onto the floorboard. He told police she had pushed his head while they were in the car.
Martinez says doctors were not able to reattach the woman’s thumb. She says police victim advocates are working to help her.
Davis is being held in the Brevard County Jail on aggravated battery charges.

January 15, 2013in Family Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

DCF in the News Again

The goings-on in front of six young kids at 647 NW Third Ct. in Hallandale Beach — the dope smoking and drinking, the yelling, cursing and threats — was so disturbing to an observer that she called the state’s child abuse hotline.
“It is just terrible,’’ the woman told the hotline operator just after the New Year. “Horrible.’’
Four days later, the 21-year-old mother of some of those children, Brittney Sierra, would be arrested for child neglect, which could be the least of her problems.
Investigators dug up the remains of an infant in a nearby yard on Friday. They might be Sierra’s son, Dontrell Melvin. If they are, Sierra, 21, could be charged with murder along with the boy’s father, Calvin Melvin, 27.
The scene at the house Sierra and her children shared with her mother, Renee Menendez and her children, shouldn’t have been a surprise to child-welfare workers, considering how many times they’d been there.
Department records indicate 30 contacts with Menendez, a KFC manager in her 40s who was raising four children ranging in age from 8 to 11 — Sierra’s half siblings.
Like her daughter Sierra, Menendez has now lost all of her children. Department of Children and Family workers moved them to a state home over the weekend.

December 6, 2012in Family Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

DCF worker in Rilya’s case testifies in court

The first indication of trouble came in the form of Rilya Wilson’s case file: It seemed unusually thin.
State child welfare worker Dora Betancourt, who took over the 5-year-old foster child case in April 2002, examined the paperwork and noticed that no one had checked on Rilya in more than a year.
After a series of phone messages to Rilya’s foster mother, Betancourt came face-to-face with Geralyn Graham in the driveway of her Kendall home.
“Where’s Rilya?” Betancourt asked.
“Oh, I thought you were bringing her back,” Graham said, according to Betancourt, who testified Wednesday during Graham’s murder trial in Rilya’s disappearance.
Betancourt told jurors Wednesday that Graham’s story unfolded in a bizarre and confusing fashion. She said an unnamed Department of Children and Families worker whisked the 5-year-old away for some sort of mental health evaluation more than a year before
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/05/3127856/employee-who-discovered-rilya.html

October 22, 2012in Family Law, Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence, Florida Lawyer

Suspect in Wisconsin Salon Attack had History of Abuse

A man suspected of opening fire at a Wisconsin salon where his wife worked, killing three women and wounding four others, had a history of domestic abuse and had been arrested for slashing his wife’s tires a few weeks earlier, police said.
It wasn’t clear if Radcliffe Franklin Haughton’s wife was among the victims in Sunday’s shooting at the spa in Brookfield, a middle-to-upper class suburb west of Milwaukee. Haughton, 45, shot himself to death at the salon, police said.
Haughton’s wife sought court protection four days after he slashed her tires on Oct. 4, Brookfield police said. Police arrested him and a judge granted a four-year restraining order on Thursday. As part of the order, Haughton, of Brown Deer, was prohibited from owning a firearm.
Brookfield Police Chief Dan Tushaus declined to comment on whether Haughton had surrendered any weapons prior to Sunday’s salon rampage. Tushaus also said he wasn’t aware of a motive, but that investigators weren’t looking for anyone else in the shooting.

March 30, 2012in Florida Criminal Law, Florida Domestic Violence

DV Charges Dropped Against Manny Ramirez

The Broward County State Attorney’s Office dropped domestic violence charges against Major League Baseball star Manny Ramirez today. The reasoning, lack of support from Ramirez’ wife and alleged victim, illustrates just how difficult prosecuting crimes of domestic violence is for the State. However, having an effective advocate for your interests is still critical for a successful outcome. For more information, please read the attached article.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-mannyramirezarrested

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Melmer Law, LLC prides itself on being readily available at all times for their clients and their families. Please contact us below for more information.

Melmer Law, LLC

Mark P. Melmer, Esq. served as a prosecutor here in Miami-Dade County, handling thousands of cases at both the misdemeanor and felony level. For the last 10 years Mark has devoted his practice to family law and domestic violence issues. This experience and insight makes him a formidable advocate.