The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a dispute about whether a former Jackson County sheriff’s deputy should have been convicted on racketeering charges related to planting drugs in vehicles during traffic stops.
The Attorney General’s Office in December asked the Supreme Court to take up the issue, after a panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that former Deputy Zachary Wester should not have been convicted on racketeering charges because he acted alone. The appeals court upheld Wester’s convictions on other charges, but it said he should be resentenced.
Justices unanimously decided to hear the case but did not immediately set a date for oral arguments.
The appeals court opinion said Wester began working for the sheriff’s office in 2016 and planted drugs in certain vehicles during traffic stops. After setting up people, he arrested them on drug-related crimes.
After an investigation led to his arrest, Wester was found guilty on one count of racketeering, along with charges of official misconduct, perjury, fabricating evidence, false imprisonment and possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia, according to the appeals court opinion. He was sentenced to slightly more than 12 years and six months in prison.
But in the appeals court’s 2-1 opinion, Judge M. Kemmerly Thomas wrote that the racketeering, or RICO, law was written to address organized crime, and she said applying it to criminals acting alone “would create unintended results.”
“Here, there is no question that Wester was employed by or associated with the JCSO (Jackson County Sheriff’s Office),” the Nov. 13 opinion said.
“Further, it is undisputed that he used the office of sheriff to carry out his crimes. That is to say, his acts were ‘inextricably intertwined’ with his law enforcement duties and facilitated the prohibited acts. However, the evidence establishes that he acted alone and not in concert with any other individuals in the commission of the crimes ‘through’ a pattern of racketeering activity.”
But in asking the Supreme Court to take up the issue, the Attorney General’s Office pointed to potentially broader implications of the appeals court ruling.
“RICO is a critical tool in the fight both against organized crime and against individual perpetrators who infiltrate organizations and leverage them toward their criminal aims,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a brief.
“Individuals backed by the potentially enormous resources of a corporate or governmental entity — whether that organization is witting or unwitting — are far more dangerous than individuals acting alone. Yet the decision below (at the appeals court) hinders prosecutors’ ability to bring the full weight of the law to bear against that category of offender.”
But a lawyer for Wester argued in an April brief that the Supreme Court should decline to hear the case.
“Naturally, petitioner (the Attorney General’s Office), as the losing party below, wants a different rule of law from this (Supreme) Court,” the brief said.
“But here, the outcome of the case turned on a unique and specific set of facts: a lone deputy planting drugs during traffic stops while employed at an otherwise upstanding law enforcement organization. Petitioner has not pointed to any other instances of individuals being charged with RICO violations in similar circumstances. Should the issue recur, as the result here shows, that individual can be properly convicted of several other offenses that apply to the conduct.”
