Source: floridabulldog.org 5/10/23
Self-appointed justice reformer Jonathan Bleiweiss, credibly accused of molesting 25 men when he was a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy, has shut down an attempt to send him back to prison for a long stretch.
Prosecutors wanted substantial prison time to punish Bleiweiss for violating his probation. Under the terms of a generous 2015 plea deal, he served less than four years of a five-year sentence for multiple counts of battery, stalking and armed false imprisonment, at the same time ducking a possible life sentence for multiple sex crimes.
But what they settled for, after Bleiweiss’s lawyer unearthed a significant probation office screw-up, was Broward Circuit Judge Peter Holden’s order that Bleiweiss must have a psycho-sexual evaluation and complete a 20-week sex offender program, plus any other recommended therapy. He’ll stay on probation until 2028.
Meanwhile, Bleiweiss remains free despite a clinical psychologist’s alarming finding that he’s an above-average candidate for “sexual re-offense.”
“It appears likely that his sex crimes were driven by hatred and/or sadistic impulse rather than purely sexual desires,” psychologist John Morin wrote after examining Bleiweiss.
Broward CIrcuit Judge Peter Holden
The criminal case that began in February 2022 with Bleiweiss’s arrest abruptly cratered April 28 after his Fort Lauderdale lawyer Robert Buschel informed prosecutors right before the resentencing hearing of the probation office’s error. The mistake raised doubts about whether the ex-BSO deputy had intentionally violated his probation.
“Prosecutors had to make the best choice available to them. The goal is to protect the community, require Bleiweiss to get treatment and hold him accountable if he does not,” Paula McMahon, spokesperson for Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor, said in a statement.
Bleiweiss, 42, was ordered to get this exact sex-offender treatment as part of his 2015 plea deal that he didn’t completely honor. Prosecutors wanted to send him back to prison because he failed to do anything more than show up.
A cop gets off light. Who could have possibly predicted that the thin blue line strikes again and that once a cop always a cop prevails in the court house.
Of course, this comes out of FLA…why hasn’t Mr and Ms Book been up in arms over this?!