-Caveat Lector-
NYTimes
June 3, 2001
Old Foe of Reno Revives a Miami Fugitive's Case
By DEXTER FILKINS
MIAMI, June 2 - Even in a city jaded by the antics of its public
officials, the case of a former Miami-
Dade County commissioner still reverberates here as one of its most
bizarre.
Now, eight years after the county commissioner, Joseph M. Gersten, fled
the country in a sex-and-drugs scandal, an influential United States
representative is reviving the case. And he is doing so just as one of
the fugitive's oldest enemies, former Attorney General Janet Reno, is
considering running for governor of Florida.
The congressman, Representative Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican who
heads the House Committee on Government Reform, says his interest in the
Gersten affair has nothing to do with his relationship to Ms.
Reno, with whom Mr. Burton often clashed when she was President Bill
Clinton's attorney general.
In an unusual move, Mr. Burton says he plans to bring his committee to
Miami to investigate the conduct of prosecutors then working for Ms.
Reno, who was state attorney in what is now Miami-Dade County during
much of the investigation of Mr. Gersten, in the early 1990's. Mr.
Burton says he has unearthed evidence of unethical conduct, and that he
needs to go to Miami for answers.
"People will make the case that I am trying to cause people like Janet
Reno heartburn," Mr. Burton said in an interview Friday. "We think
there were some injustices done in this case, and we want to find out
why."
Mr. Burton dismissed accusations of partisanship, and his staff noted
that Mr. Gersten was a prominent Democrat before fleeing the country
for Australia. Mr. Burton said that the case was brought to his
attention last year by a supporter of Mr. Gersten's, and that he and
his staff were convinced that prosecutors working for Ms. Reno and
possibly members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation acted improperly
in the case.
"We started checking into it, and one thing led to another," Mr. Burton
said.
Some of Mr. Burton's opponents scoff at his explanation, and they
accuse Mr. Burton of carrying his feud with Ms. Reno beyond Washington
and into Florida's political arena. They say they find it curious that
Mr.
Burton is rushing to the defense of one fugitive, Mr. Gersten, just as
his committee is investigating Mr.
Clinton's pardon of another fugitive, the commodities trader Marc Rich.
Mr. Burton's objective, his detractors suggest, is to thwart Ms.
Reno's prospective candidacy to unseat Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican.
"This is so old. Why now?" mused Bob Poe, the chairman of the Florida
Democratic Party. "I think he wants to wreak havoc and embarrass Janet
Reno."
Ms. Reno said she was questioned on the matter by a member of Mr.
Burton's staff last year. In a recent telephone interview, she said, "I
can't speculate on what Congressman Burton wants," but she described him
as "a constant critic."
Ms. Reno said she stood by her actions and those of her subordinates in
the Gersten investigation, and pointed out that her office never charged
Mr. Gersten with a crime.
Ms. Reno also noted that by the time Mr. Gersten fled the country in
1993, she had left Miami to work in the Clinton administration.
The case goes back to April 29, 1992, when Mr. Gersten, a prominent
elected official, reported his ice-blue Mercedes-Benz stolen from in
front of his Coral Gables home. The police found the car the next day,
but two of the people inside it, and two others picked up later, gave a
different account: that Mr.
Gersten had been with them in a house several miles away in Miami,
smoking crack cocaine and having sex.
Some of those in the crack house decided to rob Mr. Gersten, they said,
and they left him miles away from home without his car, wallet,
briefcase or a gun that he had been carrying.
Mr. Gersten denied the accusations. He passed a drug test, but
prosecutors were still suspicious. They issued a subpoena demanding
that he answer questions about the police report he filed contending
that his car had been stolen from his home.
Mr. Gersten never gave the statement. After months of legal wrangling,
Mr. Gersten was ordered jailed by a Miami-Dade judge for contempt of
court. After spending nearly three weeks in jail, he was released
pending an appeal.
Some time later, Mr. Gersten left the country. He eventually landed in
Australia, where he is fighting for the right to practice law.
In investigating the investigation of Mr. Gersten, Mr. Burton's aides
said they had found evidence suggesting potential abuse by prosecutors
and the F.B.I., and hints of a possible conspiracy to frame Mr.
Gersten.
The main contention of Mr. Burton's report concerns prosecutors'
handling of a statement from a 15-
year-old boy who said he had seen a person resembling Mr. Gersten kill
a transvestite the week of the car theft. The accusation turned out to
be false, and the youth told the police that he had made it at the
suggestion of one of Mr. Gersten's other accusers, who, he said, had
promised him money from the F.B.I.
"Here they have evidence of a frame-up, and they never went back and
asked questions," said James C.
Wilson, the chief counsel to the House Committee on Government Reform.
The F.B.I, which was investigating Mr. Gersten's role in county bond
deals at the time, declined to comment this week.
Richard D. Gregorie, senior litigation counsel at the United States
Attorney's Office in Miami and one of the prosecutors who investigated
Mr. Gersten, said he did not recall the homicide accusation. But he
dismissed the idea of a conspiracy to frame Mr. Gersten.
"Absolute and utter hogwash," Mr. Gregorie said.
Mr. Burton said he hoped to hold the hearing here in the next couple of
weeks.
He might get a skeptical reception. Here in Miami, Dan Burton is an
obscure congressman, Ms. Reno is a household word, and Mr. Gersten is
still recalled with derision. Some insiders say say Mr. Burton may
have a difficult time convincing his audience of the real subject of his
investigation.
"The timing is just too close," said Ric Katz, a Miami political
consultant and a friend of Mr. Gersten's. "This is not about Joe
Gersten. This is about Janet Reno."
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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