TALLAHASSEE — Pointing to a potentially broader impact, a divided appeals court Wednesday overturned a racketeering conviction against a former Jackson County sheriff’s deputy who planted drugs in vehicles during traffic stops.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld former Deputy Zachary Wester’s convictions on other charges. But a majority ruled he should not have been convicted of racketeering because he acted alone. The ruling ordered resentencing.
Saying the case involves a “complex legal issue, and its answer has far-reaching impact,” the panel also asked the Florida Supreme Court to take up the issue, which involves a law known as the Florida RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act.
“Here, there is no question that Wester was employed by or associated with the JCSO (Jackson County Sheriff’s Office),” Judge M. Kemmerly Thomas wrote in the majority opinion joined fully by Judge Joseph Lewis. “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.”
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But Chief Judge Timothy Osterhaus dissented on the racketeering issue, saying that the RICO Act and other cases show that “racketeering encompasses crimes like Wester’s, where an individual employed by an entity activates the weight of that entities’ authority and tools — the entire law enforcement system in Jackson County in this case — in a criminal scheme.”
“(It) is undisputed that the sheriff’s office employed Wester and vested him with the full authority of a deputy sheriff to enforce the criminal and traffic laws in Jackson County on its behalf,” Osterhaus wrote. “Wester leveraged this authority as well as the tools of the sheriff’s office — patrol car, lights, uniform, badge, arrest authority, handcuffs, jail, official paperwork, etc. — to commit a series of crimes that were only successful because of Wester’s employment and association with the office. It vested governmental authority in Wester to do what he did — to make traffic stops, conduct vehicle searches, and make arrests that activated the entire criminal justice system in Jackson County against his victims — the sheriff’s office jailed Wester’s victims as lawbreakers, the state attorney’s office prosecuted them, and courts administered their cases.”
Describing the facts of the case as “disturbing,” Thomas wrote that Wester began working for the sheriff’s office in 2016 and planted drugs in certain vehicles during traffic stops.
“After Wester set up the unsuspecting and innocent individuals, they were arrested and charged with drug-related crimes, drastically impacting their lives,” Thomas wrote. “The crime spree came to an end only when an internal affairs investigation was initiated into Wester’s unauthorized disconnection of his body camera during the traffic stops.”
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, Thomas wrote. He was sentenced to slightly more than 12 years and six months in prison.
Thomas wrote that the RICO law was written to address organized crime, and she said applying it to criminals acting alone “would create unintended results.”
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“A plethora of examples can be imagined,” Thomas wrote. “Suppose that Ethel, a 76-year-old, who works at her church part-time as a volunteer bookkeeper, skims $5 from the church bingo pot on three occasions to fund her lunch. Under the state’s proposed application, Ethel would be subject to either indictment for petty theft (possible sentence of up to 60 days in jail) or for violation of the RICO Act (possible sentence of up to 30 years). Although she used an ‘enterprise’ — a church that was separate and distinct from herself — and she could not have committed the crime if not for her job as the accountant, she did not act in concert with another or act in complicity with anyone else to carry out the pattern of racketeering activity. In practical application, the state’s proposed interpretation of the RICO Act would at its core, only require the existence of an enterprise (a business, formal or informal, legal or illegal) as a necessary component of the crime.”
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