RRA Case Fading Away
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It's just a little kitsch left over from the biggest crime in Broward history. And it's beginning to look like almost all the folks who jumped into Scott Rothstein's orbit and helped make his fraud possible are going to walk. The U.S. Attorney's Office seems to have lost its mojo in the investigation. There were once huge expectations for multiple convictions not only by the public but among the feds themselves. Yet to date, only Rothstein and henchwoman Debra Villegas have been charged and convicted, and any hope of bringing justice to the real facilitators is waning.
Let me tell you something about federal prosecutors in Miami. They are perfectly competent but also deathly afraid to lose. They are afraid that the lawyers and wealthy business people who were tied to Rothstein will beat them in court in any case that isn't 100 percent obvious. They are especially afraid of
the attorneys the well-heeled defendants will throw at them. Have you ever followed a team that was afraid to lose? Funny thing is that they almost always lose the big games. What's really pathetic about the U.S. Attorney's Office folks is that they are so afraid to lose that they don't even play the game. They lose by default.
What they don't seem to understand is that their lack of action in the Rothstein case is going to ensure that they are seen as monumental losers in the eyes of history. Again, all three of the assistant U.S. attorneys assigned the Rothstein case -- Jeffrey Kaplan, Pete Schwartz, and Lawrence LaVecchio -- are good prosecutors, but their paralysis in this hugely significant case will forever overshadow all the good work they've done.
I hope I'm wrong; I hope they will make a late-inning run. But after 15 months, the longer this drags out, the more likely most of the Rothstein crony cases will go gently into that good night.
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