As part of Child Abuse Prevention Month in April, JWB Community Planning Manager Yaridis Garcia was recently featured in a statewide podcast with Prevent Child Abuse Florida and the Ounce of Prevention, spotlighting the 2021 Child Abuse Prevention Conference, JWB’s Neighborhood Family Centers, and our work in the area of strengthening and supporting families to prevent child abuse and neglect. To learn more about JWB’s work to prevent child abuse and neglect, and strengthen communities visit www.jwbpinellas.org.
Chan Heng was attending a flea market in Pinellas Park last week when he saw a booth advertising appointments for the coronavirus vaccine at the Lealman and Asian Neighborhood Family Center.
So the 54-year-old St. Petersburg resident signed up. It was so much easier than trying to do it online, he said.
He was one of about 300 people vaccinated at the center Saturday. It serves the Lealman area and many immigrant residents, like Heng, who moved to the United States from Cambodia in 1982. The staff even translated for patients.
“This is very convenient,” Heng said.
It is one of many clinics across the Tampa Bay region whose mission is getting vaccines to underserved communities. While the state is allowing all residents 16 and older to get vaccinated starting today, some Floridians still face obstacles. Low-income and migrant residents can lack transportation and face language barriers.
Florida’s residency requirement has raised concerns about vaccine access for migrant workers, the undocumented and those experiencing homelessness. Immigration advocates recently called for an end to the requirement, saying it excludes undocumented immigrants, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The Florida Department of Health says a state-issued ID is needed to receive a vaccine. Seasonal residents may present two forms of identification, such as a deed, mortgage or lease, a utility bill or mail from the government or a bank.
Florida Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Samantha Bequer said health officials can also accept other proof of residency at their discretion, such as a letter from an employer or landlord, or a spouse’s proof of residency along with proof of marriage.
But for those who struggle with such documents and requirements, a patchwork vaccination effort has sprung up across the Tampa Bay region. Advocacy groups, health departments and vaccination sites started serving communities that otherwise might be excluded.
Redlands Christian Migrant Association health advocate Noe Bautista helped organize a clinic that distributed vaccines to migrant farm workers in Mulberry. The clinic received 400 doses of vaccines including both the first and second doses of Pfizer vaccines. The first round was administered March 20.
“The first barrier is the lack of vaccines,” Bautista said. “They don’t have access.”
The registration and identification process was simple, Bautista said. Organizers asked for workers’ names, date of birth, phone numbers and town where they live. Bautista also helped translate information into Mixtec, the language of the indigenous Mexican farmworkers he works with.
Clearwater’s Hispanic Outreach Center offered the first dose of coronavirus vaccines to community members at the end of February and the second doses were distributed at the end of March. In total, the staff fully vaccinated 244 people. CEO Jaclyn Boland said the next clinic, scheduled for April 10, is almost fully booked.
The center asks participants to bring a photo ID and proof of residency. But Boland said they’re also accepting items such as foreign passports for those who don’t have state-issued identification. For those who do not have their own bills or bank statements, proof of residency from someone they share a home with is acceptable, along with a statement from that person affirming they live together.
“Really, we haven’t found many people having an issue with that part,” Boland said.
Dr. Nichelle Threadgill, chief medical officer at Community Health Centers of Pinellas, Inc., said its clinics have tried to offer flexibility to patients and those who visit pop-up clinics, whose times are listed online. Threadgill said the site accepts any form of identification that the Department of Motor Vehicles would accept. Many patients often share homes with relatives, so proof of residency from someone with whom the patient lives is also acceptable.
“We try not to be restrictive at all,” Threadgill said.
Local groups are also working to ensure vaccine access for those experiencing homelessness across Tampa Bay. As of March 29, the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County said it had vaccinated 344 patients at local homeless shelters. Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas CEO Amy Foster said local sites serving the homeless have been accepting county blue cards — which give them access to the county health system — as a form of identification.
“We’re excited that eligibility has been expanded and we’ll be able to get more folks vaccinated shortly,” she said.
In Hillsborough County, emergency management has worked with community groups to ensure access for undocumented and homeless residents who might otherwise struggle to get vaccinated. Metropolitan Ministries and Feeding Tampa Bay have also hosted vaccination sites.
Tampa Bay Street Medicine has worked to distribute 93 vaccine doses to its patients, many of whom are experiencing homelessness. Most recently, it distributed the first dose of vaccines to patients at the beginning of March, said clinic co-director Jacob Wasserman.
The organization also administered doses of the Pfizer vaccine in February and 95 percent of patients returned for their second dose, he said.
“I think that the reason for that is the fact that we’ve cultivated a true relationship with our patients over the course of many years,” Wasserman said. “I just took it as a really cool sign.”
Tampa Bay area children can once again receive free water safety and swim lessons at their local Y, starting during the local school districts’ Spring Break, March 15-18.
TheY’s Safety Around Water program is offered this year at 16 Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA and YMCA of the Suncoast locations. The program is free and open to all 3-12-year-old beginners and non-swimmers in the Tampa Bay community. The YMCA of the Suncoast is able to offer the program at no cost in Pinellas County thanks to the generosity of the Juvenile Welfare Board.
During the 4-day course, certified instructors teach kids a sequenced set of skills that will reduce the risk of drowning and give them confidence in and around water. Participants must be present on the first day of class and bring their own swimsuit and towel. A YMCA membership is NOT required; however, due to limited space, pre-registration is required at these participating Ys:
At the Tampa Y, you can sign up online, in-person or by phone. At the Suncoast Y, you can sign up in-person or by phone. As with all YMCA programs and services, the Y follows guidance from the CDC and government officials to create a safer environment and ensure the highest standards of cleanliness and appropriate accommodations for social distancing. The Y will also offer the free Safety Around Water program in May and August of this year. Dates and times vary based on YMCA location.
GULFPORT, FL — On Feb. 13, 2021, the Stetson University College of Law Board of Overseers unanimously passed resolutions to honor the service of Sammy Cacciatore, Rhea Law, Bernie McCabe and Bonnie Forman – all esteemed alumni with a legacy of helping elevate their alma mater and the legal field. The resolutions recognize their years of selfless devotion to both the College and the advancement of legal education.
Sammy Cacciatore
Sammy Cacciatore is a Double Hatter, earning a bachelor’s degree from Stetson University and his Juris Doctor in 1966. He began his career as an Assistant Public Defender and in 1967 joined the Law Office of James Nance, which would later be known as Nance & Cacciatore, where he continues to practice personal injury litigation.
In Jones v. Hoffman, Cacciatore pioneered efforts to establish comparative negligence as the standard in Florida. This ultimately resulted in the change to this standard throughout the country, transforming the way injured people are compensated.
He gives generously of his time and resources to many professional and nonprofit organizations, including: the International Academy of Trial Lawyers; Brevard County Bar Association; Vassar B. Carlton American Inn of Court; Florida Supreme Court’s Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Civil Cases; Florida Justice Association; Florida Bar Board of Governors; Coastal Conservation Association; Several Judicial Nominating Commissions, Florida State Courts; Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church; Coastal Conservation Association; and the Back Country Fly Fishing Association.Subscribe
Despite his many interests and obligations, Cacciatore has always maintained time for his alma mater, being appointed to the Board of Trustees of Stetson University in 2000 and serving as a member of the Board of Overseers since 1995.
Rhea Law
Law is a 1979 Stetson Law alumna who practiced in the areas of higher education, economic development, government, and land use law. During her career, she served as chief executive officer and chair of the board of Fowler White Boggs, PA and as chair of the Florida Offices of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, PC.
Her professional and nonprofit organizations are many and varied, including: the American Bar Association; American Bar Foundation; Enterprise Florida, Inc.; Leadership Council on Legal Diversity; Tampa Bay Technology Forum; Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce; Leadership Tampa; Lions Eye Institute for Transplant & Research; Tampa Bay Defense Alliance; Tampa Bay Partnership; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida Multicultural Advisory Council; Health Professions Conferencing Corporation; H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute National Board of Advisors; MacDill Air Force Base Support Council; Tampa Bay Metro; Tampa Bay Partnership; Tampa Electric; Peoples Gas Board of Directors; Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation; The Florida Council of 100; United States Law Firm Group; University of South Florida Board of Trustees; and University of South Florida Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation.
Law was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Stetson University in 2019 and has served two terms as a member of the Board of Overseers, beginning in 2007 and then again beginning in 2013.
Bernie McCabe
McCabe was a Double Hatter, earning his bachelor’s in 1969 and Juris Doctor in 1972. He began his career as the Assistant State Attorney in the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Florida and went on to serve as the Division Director, Executive Assistant State Attorney, and Chief Assistant State Attorney before being elected as State Attorney for Pinellas and Pasco counties in 1992. He was continually reelected to the position and worked until his passing in 2020.
McCabe dedicated his life and career to many professional and nonprofit organizations aimed at protecting the rights of others, including: the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association; National District Attorneys Association; Pinellas County Juvenile Welfare Board; Pinellas County Substance Abuse Advisory Board; Suncoast Family YMCA; Pasco and Pinellas Public Safety Coordinating Councils; Florida Violent Crime and Drug Control Council; Pinellas County Health and Human Services Coordinating Council; Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police Association; and Pinellas Police Standards Council.
He also was a steadfast presence at Stetson Law, being appointed to the Board of Overseers in 1994, supervising the Stetson Prosecution Clinic for 28 years, teaching young law students as an Adjunct Professor, serving as judge for various mock trial competitions at the law school, and hiring and mentoring many Stetson Law alumni.
Bonnie Forman
Foreman is a 1967 graduate of Stetson University who shared her love of learning by teaching elementary school in Pinellas County, Fla., for 34 years. Her late husband, Edward D. Foreman, was a 1967 graduate of Stetson University and a 1971 graduate of Stetson University College of Law. She established the Edward D. Foreman Most Distinguished Student Award in 2005 in his memory. The award is given each spring to the “best all-around student” who has demonstrated a passion for the legal profession and commitment to community service.
Foreman also established the Edward D. Foreman Scholarship and the Edward and Bonnie Foreman Biodiversity Lecture Series at Stetson Law. The lecture series features world renowned experts in the areas of environmental law and environmental science.
She has given generously of her time and resources and been associated with many nonprofit organizations, including: the SPCA Tampa Bay; Pace Center for Girls; Pinellas Education Foundation; and Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Foreman was also appointed to the Board of Trustees of Stetson University and to the Board of Overseers of Stetson University College of Law in 2007.
Preserve Vision Florida is offering free vision screenings for youth and their parents on Wednesday, February 24, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the Safety Harbor Public Library. Appointments not required. Assistance for an eye exam and glasses may be provided for those that qualify. Masks are required and COVID social distancing measures enforced.
For more information, contact Miralee Berrios at 813-410-9967. Preserve Vision Florida is a non-profit organization offering 64 years of vision education and services to Florida’s children and adults focusing on promoting a lifetime of healthy vision care through advocacy, education, screening, and research. For more information visit www.pvfla.org. This program is funded in conjunction with Juvenile Welfare Board.
The Library is located at 101 2nd Street North, Safety Harbor, 34695.
As the battle to end COVID-19 continues, local agencies partnered to protect young children from the virus in the Tampa Bay area.
On Saturday, the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County, Juvenile Welfare Board, and Florida Association of Infant Mental Health gave almost 10,000 clear and cloth face mask and 500 gallons of hand sanitizer to 447 child care providers in Pinellas County.
Their goal is for young children and early child care educators to have the best equipment for a safe and appropriate learning experience.
“Clear face masks allow parents to rest assure their child and the VPK and School Readiness child care educators are safe and have the tools necessary to learn and teach effectively,” said Lindsay Carson, CEO of the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas.
Masks will be distributed on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Thursday, January 28 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Early Learning Coalition Centers in Clearwater and St. Petersburg.
Florida House Speaker Rep. Chris Sprowls wants the county commission to rename the Pinellas County Justice Center after late Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe.
McCabe, who died Jan. 1 at age 73, “left an unrivaled legacy in the pantheon of Florida justice seekers,” wrote Sprowls, a Palm Harbor Republican and former prosecutor who used to work for the State Attorney’s Office.
The letter sent Wednesday to the Pinellas County Commission was co-signed by Acting State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, who was McCabe’s chief assistant, Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, Pinellas Clerk of the Circuit Court Ken Burke and Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Anthony Rondolino.
“Mr. McCabe was fond of asking his young prosecutors when they asked him what they should do on a case, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ He had a way of making complex decisions easy with keen moral clarity,” the letter says.
“Naming the building that he walked into every day to serve as a minister of justice, well … it’s the right thing to do. We hope you will.”
The State Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices are located inside the sprawling Justice Center at 14250 49th Street N, along with courtrooms, judge’s chambers and the office of the clerk and comptroller.
Defense attorney Haydee Oropesa on Friday emailed the commissioners and those who signed the letter and told them she plans to publicly oppose renaming the courthouse after the region’s longtime prosecutor, who represents just one side of the criminal justice system.
“The Courthouse is supposed to represent Truth and Justice (and neither side of a case is the absolute holder of those ideals),” she said, “and it is supposed to be blind not visually focused on any one side.”
McCabe began working at the State Attorney’s Office in 1972 and, other than two years in which he moved back to his hometown of Mount Dora after his father died, spent his four-decade legal career working there. He was elected to the top job in 1992 and has been reelected ever since.
Among Florida’s legal and political community, McCabe was known as a mentor to young lawyers, a whip-smart litigator, and an advocate for crime victims, police officers and children. He served for 20 years on the Pinellas County Juvenile Welfare Board and was one of the first state attorneys in Florida to start drug and veterans’ treatment courts.
“He could be fierce when he needed to be, but his heart was one in constant search of truth and righteousness,” the letter says.
McCabe had been in bad health for some time, friends and colleagues said. In February, he suffered what he called an “adverse health event” before the pandemic and started working from home. He provided no details about his health then. He was days away from starting his eighth term when he died. The chief judge appointed Bartlett, McCabe’s longtime chief assistant, to run the agency until the governor appoints an interim state attorney.
According to the county’s honorary naming rights policy, any group of citizens can submit a proposal to name a county-owned or controlled building after someone.
The county administrator will then create a committee to consider the proposal, and that committee will make a recommendation to county commissioners, who have the final say.
Soon after she was appointed as a prosecutor in Missouri, she started working on a death penalty case. She remembers watching the mother of a teenage defendant, learning that the state would seek death against her son, pass out in shock. The experience took a lot out of the young lawyer.
So she left, moving to the Florida Keys to think about her next steps — and learn to scuba dive. On her drive from Marathon to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, she’d pass a Monroe County Public Defender’s satellite office. As she struggled with her experience on the other side of the legal system, the frequent drive-bys gave her an idea.
“I thought being a public defender would be a really good opportunity just to make sure that the process worked fair, and that everybody did get justice,” Mollo said in a recent interview.
Beginning today, Mollo, 51, will lead the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender’s Office for a four-year term, following last week’s retirement of Bob Dillinger, who was first elected in 1996 and served five terms. After Mollo worked a few years at the Monroe County office, then in private practice, Dillinger hired her in 2003, where she rose to be his chief assistant. With her boss’ support, she ran for his seat unopposed.
Mollo will be one of two new leaders in the Pinellas-Pasco legal system. Following the unexpected death last week of State Attorney Bernie McCabe, his chief assistant, Bruce Bartlett, is taking over the job. McCabe served one term longer than Dillinger, making this a rare moment for two offices previously led for decades by incumbents.
For Mollo, much of her first year in office will be focused on keeping it running amid the coronavirus pandemic, she said. The virus has forced many court proceedings online, so Mollo said she wants to make sure the office stays up to date with technology.
She also anticipates that, as the pandemic pushes up unemployment and poverty rates, fewer people will be able to afford a private lawyer, so her office will likely take on more clients. That’s on top of the case backlog that has built up as the pandemic continues to stall some criminal trials. Mollo is also bracing for budget constraints for her own office.
“There’s going to be some additional challenges right up front,” she said.
Beyond that, she wants to continue her boss’s legacy, which is a big task on its own, she said. Dillinger expanded his office’s role to include social programs and outreach that go beyond the traditional public defender role of providing legal representation to those who can’t afford private lawyers.
Mollo shares Dillinger’s passion for mental health, which bloomed while she was working on Baker Act cases. The Baker Act is a Florida law that allows for the involuntary examination of those experiencing a mental health crisis. And working in the office she saw how much issues such as mental illness, substance abuse and homelessness played into her clients’ cases.
“What I noticed, and what Mr. Dillinger allowed me to see was a tenacious and relentless caring for people, just unwilling to give up on them,” she said.
Of her new role, she said, “I’m not interested in the politics of it. I’m interested in the people of it, and that’s what I’m going to stay focused on.”
Mollo lives in Belleair Bluffs with her husband and daughter. Spot her at the courthouse by looking for red heels — her signature accessory.
The Honorable Bernie McCabe served nearly three decades as top prosecutor for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, and two decades as a member of the Juvenile Welfare Board. His legacy for doing what is right, and for being an advocate for children and youth will live on.
When Bernie McCabe first thought about becoming a lawyer, the name that came to mind was TV’s most famous defense attorney.
“I was always fascinated by Perry Mason,” he told the Tampa Bay Times in 2018.
Instead, McCabe’s historic career went in the opposite direction: He spent a half-century as a prosecutor and in 1992 was elected to the top job.
As Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney, he spent nearly three decades overseeing the prosecution of murderers, cop-killers and con men in both counties. He also led the office in its unsuccessful prosecution of the Church of Scientology.
“It’s no secret he’s been in poor health,” said Pinellas Pasco Clerk of the Circuit Court Ken Burke, a longtime friend of the state attorney.
McCabe leaves behind a wife, Denise, who he married in 1969, and two children.
In a 2018 interview with the Times, McCabe said his job meant everything to him.
“There’s a lot of satisfaction there. I think I would feel a big void (if I wasn’t working),” he said. “I don’t play golf. In fact, I hate gardening. I can cook reasonably well, but I can’t do that all the time …
“I don’t know if there’s anything else that I could find that would give me the sense of fulfillment that I get out of this office.”
When the news of McCabe’s death broke Saturday, the region’s top officials offered praise.
“He was a man with great intelligence. He had a superior insight into our judicial system. He was a keen politician, and he was always mindful of the other justice partners,” said Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Anthony Rondolino, who had known McCabe since both were young attorneys. “He was a great leader for the state attorney’s office and has a legacy that will be very, very difficult to surpass.”
The chief judge on Saturday appointed Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, McCabe’s longtime second-in-command and close friend, as acting state attorney.
“Trying to step in for Bernie — they’re hard shoes to fill,” Bartlett said. “I just hope that the public will be satisfied with what I do.”
Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, left, and Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, confer during the Sept. 23, 2013 re-sentencing hearing of Nicholas Lindsey Jr. He was 16 when he killed St. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford in 2011. Lindsey was again sentenced to life in prison. [ KEELER, SCOTT | Tampa Tribune ]
McCabe’s only contested election was his first one in 1992, and he has run unopposed since. In April he was automatically elected to another four-year term that was to start Tuesday. The governor will have to appoint an interim state attorney, and then voters will elect a new state attorney in 2022.
McCabe’s death and Dillinger’s departure means new faces will fill the Pinellas-Pasco circuit’s top criminal justice positions for the first time in decades.
• • •
McCabe was raised in Mount Dora, where his father once served as Lake County school superintendent. What first drew him to the law, he said, was the school board’s colorful attorney, a cigar-chomping lawyer who drove a white Cadillac convertible with red leather seats.
But when McCabe went to Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, his career path fell into place after his first prosecution clinic in 1971. He said he enjoyed the “satisfaction” of helping people and doing the right thing. He graduated in 1972 and joined the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office.
“It was kind of right place, right time,” he said, “and I came to really love what I was doing.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Ander Crenshaw, left, talks with Pinellas-Pasco Attorney Bernie McCabe at a Clearwater restaurant in 1993. [ Associated Press ]
He spent eight years there, supervising the St. Petersburg and then Pasco County offices. Then in 1980, after his father died, he returned home and went to work as a prosecutor in Lake County. Two years later, then-Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Jimmy Russell asked him to come back. McCabe became Russell’s top deputy, then his heir apparent in the 1992 election.
Under his tenure, the State Attorney’s Office won convictions in some of the worst crimes in Tampa Bay history. That includes the case of Oba Chandler, who was executed in 2011 for the murders of Joan Rogers and daughters Michelle and Christe. The Ohio family was visiting Florida in 1989 when Chandler offered to take them out onto Tampa Bay in his boat. They were found floating in the bay, bound, tied to concrete blocks and stripped below the waist.
McCabe prided himself on personally prosecuting cop-killers. He was on the prosecution teams that convicted the killers of Belleair police Officer Jeffery Tackett, who died in 1993; Pasco sheriff’s Lt. Charles “Bo” Harrison, who was killed in 2003; and St. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford, who died in 2011.
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, calls a witness into the grand jury room at the West Pasco Judicial Center in 2003. The grand jury indicted Alfredie Steele Jr. in the murder of Pasco County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Charles “Bo” Harrison in Lacoochee, and a jury later convicted Steele. [ ANDY JONES | Tampa Bay Times ]
“Any good trial lawyer first and foremost is preparation, and Bernie did his homework,” said Pinellas-Pasco Judge Jack Helinger, who started his legal career as a prosecutor in 1976. And to jurors, Helinger said, McCabe “was a good ‘ol Mount Dora boy. He didn’t talk down to them. He talked with them.”
He supervised an office of about 165 attorneys that handles roughly 80,000 felony, misdemeanor, traffic and juvenile cases a year. In recent years he complained about the toll austere budgets took on his agency.
In a 2011 interview, McCabe noted one of the most disappointing cases of his career: The failed prosecution of the Church of Scientology for the 1995 death of member Lisa McPherson who spent her last days in the church’s care. In 1998 he charged the church with two felonies, practicing medicine without a license and abuse of a disabled adult. But in 2000 he dropped the charges after the medical examiner changed McPherson’s manner of death from “undetermined” to “accident.”
The most famous white collar crime that McCabe’s office prosecuted was against the Rev. Henry Lyons, the St. Petersburg preacher who was then one of the nation’s most powerful Black church leaders. In 1999 he was convicted of using his position as president of the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. to swindle corporations out of more than $4 million.
McCabe’s decisions also made headlines. In 1996, Officer James Knight, a white man, fatally shot Tyron Lewis, a Black motorist who edged his car forward, knocking the officer onto the hood. That incident sparked two nights of rioting in St. Petersburg. McCabe took the case to a grand jury, and its decision not to charge the officer led to more violence. However, when the Times raised questions about the evidence presented to the grand jury, McCabe insisted the grand jury’s report was accurate.
More recently, McCabe prosecuted a man the Pinellas sheriff declined to arrest: Michael Drejka, a white man who killed a Black man, Markeis McGlockton, in a 2018 dispute over a Clearwater parking spot. The sheriff cited Florida’s stand your ground law, but McCabe charged Drejka and he was convicted of manslaughter in 2019.
• • •
McCabe had a big heart for children, said Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. He supported juvenile diversion programs, which channel children arrested for certain crimes into social services and community services and away from the criminal justice system. He also supported Gualtieri’s move to start a similar program for adults accused of minor crimes.
“What made him stick out was his firm belief in doing the right things and treating people fairly and treating them humanely,” Gualtieri said.
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, shown here at a Juvenile Welfare Board meeting in 2019.
But McCabe was also tough when he needed to be, the sheriff said, calling him “an icon in the legal community and law enforcement.”
Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls, a Palm Harbor Republican who worked as a prosecutor in McCabe’s office until about four years ago, on Saturday posted a statement on Twitter.
“Bernie was my mentor and my friend,” he said. “I will miss him more than I can put into words, but I also know that I will carry the lessons I learned from him with me through all the days of my life.”
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe holds out his hand to simulate firing a gun during closing arguments in the 2012 murder trial of Nicholas Lindsey Jr., who was convicted of killing St. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford in 2011. [ KEELER, SCOTT | Times ]
Despite his declining health, Gualtieri said McCabe’s mind was as sharp as ever. And his passion for his work never diminished either.
“I thoroughly enjoy this job and I don’t know what it is, but when I start contemplating not coming to work, I just sense a sort of emptiness,” he told the Times in 2018. “I enjoy coming to work, I enjoy interacting with people, I thoroughly enjoy trying to make the community a safer place, or at least keep it from becoming a more dangerous place.”
Friends and colleagues believe that’s why McCabe continued to run for office, despite his declining health. He once said he’d retire after 2016 — but ended up running two more times.
“It doesn’t get more dedicated than he was,” Gualtieri said, “right to the end.”
