TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday morning announced the suspension of Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell.
It comes after months spent by the state attorney defending her record in the wake of high-profile crimes in her jurisdiction, including the February shooting deaths of three people in Pine Hills — 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin, 9-year-old T’yonna Major and 24-year-old Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons — and now the shooting of two Orlando police officers who were conducting a traffic stop downtown.
DeSantis, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and others at the event claimed such crimes could have been prevented under different leadership, adding they now would be.
“One’s political agenda cannot trump this solemn duty. Refusing to faithfully enforce the laws of Florida puts our communities in danger and victimizes innocent Floridians,” DeSantis said. “Accordingly, I am today announcing the suspension of State Attorney Monique Morrell from the Ninth Judicial Circuit, effective immediately. I’m appointing Judge Andrew Bain to take over as state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit.”
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Constituting the suspension, DeSantis accused Worrell of avoiding issuing minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes and drug trafficking offenses, of following patterns or practices allowing juvenile offenders to avoid incarceration and avoiding valid or applicable sentencing enhancements. The governor also claimed Worrell was lenient on charges in child pornography cases.
“Prosecutors do have a certain amount of discretion about which cases to bring and which not, but what this state attorney has done is abuse that discretion and has effectively nullified certain laws in the state of Florida. That breaches her duties that she owes to the people of Florida under our state Constitution and provides the basis for the suspension, and we can look to see all these different instances of people who have committed criminal offenses, victimize people, because they were not held accountable in accordance with the laws of Florida when they had the opportunity to hold them accountable,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis was joined by Moody, Bain, FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass and others at the Cabinet Meeting Room at the state Capitol Building.
“She has, by far, the highest rate and raw numbers statewide of no-files and failures to prosecute juveniles, and whether you are an adult or a juvenile, the reality in the Ninth Circuit currently is that nearly half of the time, Mrs. Worrell’s office is not going to prosecute you if you commit a crime,” Moody said. “...Justice is not served and the public safety is not advanced by failing to seek to hold dangerous criminals in custody before they face trial and it is not advanced by failing to prosecute nearly half of the defendants committing crimes in your circuit. Mrs. Worrell has made justice in the Ninth Circuit almost an arbitrary coin flip. She has failed to do her job and the citizens of the Ninth Circuit have and will continue to be victimized by defendants she failed to prosecute.”
Also in attendance Wednesday were Central Florida sheriffs Wayne Ivey of Brevard County and Grady Judd of Polk County, the latter speaking on behalf of Orange County Sheriff John Mina and Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez to their alleged perception of Worrell.
“I’ve talked to the sheriffs of Osceola and Orange and I can tell you unequivocally they fear for the citizens of the community because, despite their best efforts, no matter how many criminals you arrest, if the state attorney won’t hold them accountable, then the community’s not safe,” Judd said. “Two Orlando police officers were shot in the face. You know why they were shot in the face? Because she didn’t ask for a pre-trial hold on a very, very dangerous person. So these police officers out doing their job encounter him. What does he think? Probably, ‘They’re going to take me back to jail. Well, I’ll just shoot them because heck, after all, I probably won’t be prosecuted. I’ll be let out again.’”
Worrell was elected in 2020 to replace Aramis Ayala, who opted to not seek reelection, taking 66% of the vote.
In late March, Worrell had announced her intention to run for re-election, at the time already under investigation by the state and the target of public criticism from Mina and Lopez.
On the defense at a news conference that month — held to announce there wasn’t enough evidence to convict a teen who was arrested in a fatal shooting outside of Jones High School in November 2022 — Worrell challenged law enforcement to “build better cases” and operate above community pressure.
“There’s community pressure to help the community to feel safe again, so they (law enforcement agencies) may rush to make an arrest in order to accomplish that outcome, sometimes they make arrests because they believe that an arrest is necessary to protect the safety of the community, and these are valid reasons for them to move forward. However, when law enforcement stands in front of the media and touts an arrest and compares that arrest to convictions, it puts the onus on my office to follow through and get a conviction, and unfortunately, in too many instances to recount today, the evidence needed to support an arrest is not strong enough to merit a conviction,” Worrell said. “Under my administration, this office will not operate on a ‘throw it against the wall to see what sticks’ mentality. We respect the rule of law. We understand what it takes to move a case from probable cause to reasonable doubt and we will not ignore the facts where they are lacking.”
DeSantis on Wednesday referenced several criminal cases to bolster his basis for Worrell’s suspension, including that of Larry Lorenzo and Daton Viel, the latter of whom died Saturday in a shootout with SWAT officers who had swarmed an Orlando hotel looking for him after he shot two police officers the night prior.
In October 2022, a 17-year-old Lorenzo allegedly shot and killed a 16-year-old girl who he had gotten pregnant and had been reported missing months before she was found dead outside a home on Broken Pine Circle. DeSantis claimed Lorenzo had been arrested months before the shooting in a case where he would have faced several firearms charges, yet was released.
“In November (sic) of 2022, 17-year-old Lorenzo Larry shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend De’Shayla Ferguson. He had previously been arrested in May of 2022 on several charges, including carrying a concealed firearm, possession of a firearm on school property and criminal possession of a firearm by a minor, but he was released after all these arrests. Worrell’s office did not act on any of these charges until after he killed his girlfriend and their unborn child,” DeSantis said.
For Viel, News 6 has since examined what law enforcement referenced at the announcement of his death as his “extensive criminal history.”
Viel had been arrested in March, accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in Orlando who he had offered a ride to school late last year, yet was released from jail April 14 after posting a $125,250 bond, records show. He was already on probation at the time of the sexual battery arrest, what court records indicate was related to trespassing at an Orange County construction site in 2019, as well as to charges of aggravated assault, arson and battery that occurred in Georgia in 2020.
The Florida Department of Corrections put Viel on electronic monitoring following the sexual battery arrest, but he cut off his ankle monitor June 14 and moved out of his aunt’s Apopka home without notifying his parole officer, at which point an Orange County circuit court judge issued an arrest warrant for him, records show.
Viel was stopped most recently on June 30 by police at the University of Central Florida, yet he managed to escape in his car — a red Ford Fusion — as the officers attempted to arrest him on the Orange County warrant.
July 10, a red Ford Fusion that authorities now believe belonged to Viel was caught on camera leaving the scene of a murder in Miami. Come Friday night, more than three weeks after the Miami homicide, two publicly unidentified Orlando police officers spotted the wanted vehicle near Washington Street and Garland Avenue in downtown Orlando. Viel shot and critically wounded the two police officers before carjacking someone else and driving away, investigators said.
“Just this past weekend — we’re always at the center of another major controversy — Daton Viel was arrested in March of 2023 for sexual battery on a minor as well as lewd and lascivious molestation. The arrest was made while he was on probation for another offense. That probation began in February of 2022. He was still let out on bond and then tragically shot two Orlando police officers,” DeSantis said.
Notably left out Wednesday was any mention of Keith Moses, the accused shooter in the Pine Hills slayings that DeSantis had targeted Worrell over earlier this year.
DeSantis’ office had demanded a slew of records from the Orange-Osceola state attorney as their war of words ramped up around this time. Her reply addressed both her office’s compliance to the state’s request and “a number of misconceptions” she said was contained therein.
“The suggestions and accusations that my office’s ‘policies’ promote crime are empty political statements unsupported by actual facts. During my administration, the police arrested Mr. Moses on a single case – a misdemeanor possession of cannabis charge. Without evidence that conclusively proves Mr. Moses was in possession of illegal marijuana, it is simply not possible to prove a crime occurred. Therefore, my office did not pursue charges,” Worrell said in the statement.
The families of the Pine Hills victims had later appeared in news conferences with their lawyers, during which they lashed out against DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott with accusations the state leaders were politicizing the tragedy and opportunistically painting Worrell with a false narrative.
Worrell held a news conference Wednesday morning outside of the Orange County Courthouse to address her suspension, calling it “a political hit job,” claiming higher standards should be met to suspend an elected official and saying it would not dissuade her from seeking re-election.
“I am your duly-elected state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit and nothing done by a weak dictator can change that. This is an outrage,” Worrell said. “...Elected officials are being taken out of office solely for political purposes, and that should never be a thing. There used to be a very high standard for the removal of elected officials. There used to be a standard that I would have had to be criminally prosecuted for something, ‘neglecting my duties’ meaning that I don’t show up for work and do my job, or that I had some sort of an illness that prevented me from doing my job.”
Bain closed out the governor’s announcement in Tallahassee, introduced as an Orlando-area judge of the Ninth Circuit who DeSantis said “will keep the communities of Central Florida safe” in place of Worrell’s “clearly and fundamentally derelict” administration.
“My plan is to bring back a simple understanding, get back to the basics of what we’re here to do. It does not accomplish anything to prosecute a case with no intent to stop crimes. I will make this office accountable to the community we serve and to ensure crimes, criminals who poison society, cause mayhem and murder, are held accountable under the law. We will be good partners to law enforcement, great partnerships that can change the tide to provide a safer and more prosperous circuit and community. We will work to find solutions to the underlying issues that lead people to the criminal justice system, no matter whether it should be mental health, homelessness, food insecurity, literacy or lack of mentorship,” Bain said. “My fellow prosecutors, especially those who live in the community in our Ninth Circuit but now work for other state attorneys, who have moved because you don’t feel like there’s a home for you here in your own community, I want to welcome you back to the State Attorney’s Office with open arms.”
On Bain, Worrell said at her news conference that she knew him and had no criticisms of him.
“I know Andrew Bain personally, I think he’s a great guy. I’m not going to, you know, take any hits against him. This is the work of the governor and the person who we should all be concerned about is the governor. "
Read DeSantis’ executive order suspending Worrell below:
EO-8.9.23 by Brandon Hogan on Scribd
Watch DeSantis’ announcement again in the media player below:
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