It’s Spring Training Season in Major League Baseball.  Florida’s Grapefruit League’s first pre-season game starts today between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Detroit Tigers.  Baseball fans can hardly contain their excitement!

In the Florida Grapefruit League of Criminal Defense Attorneys, it’s also pre-season.  The League’s top hitter, Lawyer to the Criminal Stars Ben Keuhne, is swinging for the fences.  Unfortunately for him, the ump just called Strike One!

Who’d have thought that at his first at bat Hotshot Lawyer Ben Keuhne would have used the Sour Grapes Defense to try get his client off the hook for campaign finance fraud?  That is so bush league for a pro!

As awesome as it is that North Miami’s mayor Andre Pierre FINALLY got slapped with SOMETHING, even if it’s only an $8,000.00 civil fine, the bigger story here is that even a heavy hitter like Ben Keuhne hits foul balls.

The Miami Herald’s Nadege Green reported yesterday in North Miami mayor pays $8,000 civil fine to Elections Commission, that of all the wrongdoings he’s been accused of in the last couple of years, a complaint filed by Pierre’s challenger in the last city election finally stuck.  As the saying goes, if you throw enough poop against the wall, something is eventually bound to stick.  Confronted with irrefutable and documented proof that he “falsely reported or deliberately failed to report” his campaign finances, Pierre’s response was “It wasn’t me.”  Like his partner in crime, North Miami Beach EX-mayor Myron Rosner, who committed almost the exact same infractions (and for which Myron is about to stand trial on four felonies and five misdemeanors), Andre tried to blame someone else for his woes.

And, like Myron, Andre hired top gun Ben Keuhne to defend his ass.

According to the Herald article:

Initially, Pierre, an attorney, sought to deny any wrongdoing.

In a letter to the commission, Pierre wrote that the allegations were unfounded .

“It is clear that Ms. [Carol] Keys has not accepted the result at the polls and is unable to move beyond her defeat,” he wrote.

He said that Keys’ claims were “baseless” “conjecture-filled” and “speculation-laced.”

Claiming that Carol Keys was a sore loser in the election and that this was simply a case of Sour Grapes, Mr. Keuhne then tried to have the case dismissed and force Ms. Keys to pay his legal fees.  He actually stated to the Commission that by filing this complaint, Ms. Keys was trying to “to damage Mayor Pierre’s personal, professional, and political reputation.”

I’d say Hizzoner has done a pretty good job damaging his own “personal, professional, and political reputation” without any help from his “friends.”

It’s been well documented by now that the man honored by Island TV as the “Person of the Year” has been getting away with everything but murder.  His list of alleged fraudulent and corrupt activities keeps getting longer and longer, and with less than two months to go until he’s termed out of office, it’s not a minor coup that he didn’t escape with his “legacy” intact.  Although it’s common knowledge that Andre Pierre should probably have been imprisoned a long time ago, and most likely would have if State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle had done her job instead of pandering to the Haitian community to get re-elected yet again, chances are Pierre’s future plans include a long, and maybe permanent, vacation to the island nation.  Considering he’s been working behind the scenes to help build a resort in Haiti known as Petite Cayemite, perhaps that will be his vacation destination.  Only Andre knows for sure.  Maybe his hairdresser does, too.

The bigger story here, though, is that Benjamin Keuhne, Esquire, is not infallible.  His business card probably gets passed around to more elected officials than any other attorney’s, and his reputation for keeping crooked politicians out of jail precedes him.  Boy, is his plate full these days!

He’s got two more chances at bat this inning.

Next up is the trial of the aforementioned Myron Rosner, which is scheduled to begin on April 25, 2013.

That is, unless Ben gets it continued yet again.

On June 3, 2012, Ben will be defending yet another former politician, Opa-locka’s very own Terence Kenneth Pinder, on two felony racketeering charges.

Unless, of course, Ben gets it continued yet again.

But the fact that the Florida Elections Commission threw the first strike of the season only serves to remind Pierre-watchers that even Hank Aaron’s record was eventually broken.  Then again, Ben Keuhne is no Barry Bonds.

Two more strikes and he’ll be OUT.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”