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Johnny Benjamin, the former Vero Beach spine surgeon recently convicted on federal drug charges, told the jury that convicted him he believes he was set up. The jurors clearly didn’t buy it.
According to court transcripts obtained by Vero Beach 32963, the once-respected doctor who is now facing life in prison denied knowing the drugs found in his baggage at the Melbourne airport last year were supposed to be oxycodone. Someone must have planted them, he testified under oath at his trial last month. The doctor, who has since been stripped of his medical license, pointed the finger at Zachary Stewart, his co-defendant and longtime friend turned medical sales associate. Read more here.
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Lawyers for Johnny Benjamin, the former Vero Beach spine surgeon facing life in prison on federal drug charges, clashed with prosecutors last week over a defense bid to bring the jurors who convicted the island resident back for the court room for questioning. Donnie Murrell, the lead West Palm Beach trial attorney on Benjamin’s case, asked the judge May 1 to recall the jury. Benjamin was convicted and jurors discharged April 27.
After the panel was excused, a clerk found a document entitled “Here are 30 do’s and don’ts of jury deliberations,” Murrell wrote the court. While the list itself isn’t clearly prejudicial, its presence is proof that at least one juror ignored the court’s instructions and conducted their own outside research. “The concern, of course, is what is unknown here,” Murrell stated. “What other materials, if any, were brought into the jury room? If other material was introduced, how many jurors were exposed to it? Did it have an impact on their deliberations and/or the ultimate verdict? Unfortunately, the only way to determine the answers to these questions is to summon the jurors back to the courthouse and ask them.” Read more here. The day after retired Assistant Fire Chief Brian Burkeen was arrested for an alleged black-market tire sales scheme, Indian River County Commissioner Tim Zorc got an anonymous tip. While the community at-large might have been shocked to see Burkeen’s alleged fall from grace, those who worked alongside him knew what their boss was up to, but were too afraid to report him, the informant said.
“There was a very real fear of retribution among the firefighters, so no one turned Burkeen in, though it was pretty widely known what he was doing,” the message states, according to e-mails obtained by Vero Beach 32963. “[The] County might want to institute some sort of anonymous tip line for waste and theft,” it said. Burkeen, 55, a longtime county official who also briefly served on the Sebastian City Council, was purchasing new tires at Goodyear stores using county funds and then selling them to private buyers he met at work and online, police say. Read more here. Vero Beach’s private island school filed a lawsuit against the mother of a fifth-grader in circuit court last month alleging a breach in the student’s enrollment contract.
The courtroom maneuver, intended to recoup some $19,000 in lost tuition, legal damages and fees, is a familiar financial strategy for Saint Edward’s School, which has filed at least eight similar lawsuits in the last decade. A 2012 New York Times article detailed the emerging trend of private schools suing for past due tuition. Parents face large bills even when their children never attended classes, it says. Contracts are written with very specific deadlines which parents are held to regardless of personal circumstance. Read more here. A federal magistrate was introduced to two sides of Dr. Johnny Benjamin six months ago as he contemplated whether the surgeon, facing felony criminal drug charges, should be granted pretrial release.
There was the Vero Beach physician held in high esteem by his neighbors and peers, a respected community member with no children of his own who once offered to help pay for a high school valedictorian’s college education after hearing about her financial struggle. And then there was the debt-stricken doctor who abused his privilege and profession for personal and monetary gain. This man took advantage of America’s opioid addiction and supplied toxic painkillers to users on the street with little regard for human life. Read more here. |
Beth WaltonWriter, World Traveler, Mother. These are my stories. Archives
August 2018
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