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Tag: James Uthmeier

  • Florida AG candidate vows enforce minimum wage law, if elected – Orlando Weekly

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    Former state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez is running to become Florida’s next Attorney General. Credit: Facebook/Jose Javier Rodriguez

    Florida will see its minimum wage rise to $14 per hour on Sept. 30, thanks to a ballot initiative approved by Florida voters in 2020. 

    And yet, the state has no state agency or division authorized to actually enforce Florida’s wage laws — meaning, if a worker believes their boss is failing to pay them all of what they’re owed, or is stealing their tips, they have very few options for recourse. 

    Since 2005, the year Florida voters first established a state minimum wage in the first place, just one state official has had the authority to hold employers accountable for ensuring workers are paid at least minimum wage: Florida’s Attorney General.

    Under Florida statutes, the state Attorney General has the power to impose a fine of $1,000 per violation, payable to the state, for any employer found to have willfully violated minimum wage requirements.

    As Orlando Weekly has reported before, however, there is no evidence that the Attorney General’s office has ever done this in the 20 years they’ve had the authority to do so.  A report from the Economic Policy Institute found that Florida has the highest minimum wage violation rate of the 10 most populous states in the country, and research indicates that as the minimum wage goes up, so too do employer violations. 

    An analysis by the Florida Policy Institute and Rutgers University’s Center for Innovation in Worker Organization found that, after Florida’s minimum wage increased in 2005, the state’s minimum wage violation rate more than doubled to 17 percent by the end of 2007, disproportionately affecting workers in agriculture, real estate and the service industry.

    Establishing a strong enforcement mechanism for catching minimum wage violations, and holding violators accountable for cheating workers of their hard-earned wages, however, hasn’t been a priority of the state Attorney General’s Office. The office, currently led by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ally James Uthmeier, doesn’t even mention on its website that it is the only state agency that is able to do so.

    Jose Javier Rodriguez, a workers’ rights lawyer and former Democratic state senator who’s running in 2026 to replace Uthmeier, wants to change that. 

    “For decades, the Attorney General’s Office has functioned to prop up the powerful and corrupt and not to look out for the people,” Rodriguez told Orlando Weekly in an interview. “State attorneys general routinely enforce state labor laws, including state minimum wages, routinely bringing actions on behalf of defrauded workers — except in Florida,” he said.

    The wild west of labor law

    According to the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers and Northwestern University, U.S. workers lose tens of billions of dollars each year from being paid less than their state’s minimum wage. And Florida, a state with a workforce of more than 11 million, including roughly 1 million workers earning minimum wage, is uniquely vulnerable. 

    Former Gov. Jeb Bush dismantled Florida’s state department of labor more than 20 years ago, abolishing the only state agency tasked with enforcing the state’s wage and hour laws. No replacement for the former state agency has been established in Florida since, despite repeated efforts by Democratic state lawmakers who are in the minority in the Florida Legislature.

    “The minimum wage has largely been unenforced for, really, as long as Florida’s had a minimum wage,” Alexis Tsoukalas, a policy analyst for the Florida Policy Institute who’s co-authored reports on the issue, previously told Orlando Weekly. 

    Indeed, the Nation reported back in 2016 that then-state AG Pam Bondi — currently serving as U.S. Attorney General under President Donald Trump — took no action to hold employers responsible for violating the minimum wage in Florida for years. Records obtained by the Weekly show her successor Ashley Moody didn’t do much to hold employers responsible for this either.

    In 2023, for instance, her office helped just one person — a Hungry Howie’s pizza delivery driver — recover about $500 after the assistant attorney general from Moody’s office sent an ominous warning to his employer. Still, the office didn’t take any official enforcement action to get the spooked employer to pay up. Nor did his employer, a franchisee in Hudson, face any penalty for violating Florida’s minimum wage law in the first place.

    “I recommend that you make private efforts to remedy any other employees whose wages were similarly underpaid to avoid further complaints being levied against you,” then-Assistant Attorney General Rebecca Snyder wrote in an email to the Hungry Howie’s franchisee, obtained by Orlando Weekly through a public records request.

    “The minimum wage has largely been unenforced for, really, as long as Florida’s had a minimum wage”

    Alex Tsoukalas, Florida Policy Institute

    It’s unclear whether Florida’s current AG, Uthmeier, has a firm position on the issue himself. Uthmeier,  a 37 year-old Republican who formerly served as DeSantis’ chief of staff, was appointed by DeSantis to become Attorney General in February to fill a vacancy left by Moody, who was similarly appointed to fill former Sen. Marco Rubio’s seat in the U.S. Senate. 

    Orlando Weekly requested records from the state Attorney General’s Office in June, under Uthmeier’s leadership, asking for minimum wage complaints their office has received over the last year and any actions they’ve taken to address them. Despite an initial acknowledgement of our request, and multiple follow-ups, the office has failed to produce any records responsive to our request as yet.

    Florida Attorney General Uthmeier Credit: Photo via Attorney General James Uthmeier/X

    As Rodriguez pointed out in our interview, it’s not unusual for state attorneys general and other state officials elsewhere to take on the responsibility of cracking down on wage theft. 

    In Rhode Island, a state with a workforce roughly 20 times smaller than Florida’s, the Attorney General’s Office received more than 300 “actionable” cases of wage theft last year, and recovered nearly $1 million in owed wages. The small, Democratic-led northeastern state actually has its own state labor department, unlike Florida, and recently moved to make willfully committing wage theft a felony offense, up from a misdemeanor. 

    Over a two-year period, Massachusetts’ Attorney General secured over $2.8 million in back pay for more than 3,000 workers in the construction industry alone, in addition to $1.7 million in penalties from employers, payable to the state.

    New York State Attorney Letitia James has similarly taken an aggressive approach to the issue — for instance, reaching a $16.75 million settlement with DoorDash for wage theft earlier this year. She’s also recovered unpaid wages and tips for nail salon workers, bar employees, and Uber and Lyft drivers, among others.

    The state of New Jersey — albeit, independently of its Attorney General’s office — even has a digital wall of shame (“Workplace Accountability in Labor List”) for employers who commit wage theft and other violations.

    Trouble on the horizon

    The idea that employers can illegally cheat workers of their lawfully earned wages in Florida without facing repercussions is a thought that is especially troubling, with Florida’s minimum wage set to go up at the end of the month. 

    Under a ballot initiative approved by nearly 61 percent of Florida voters in 2020, Florida’s minimum wage is on a gradual path to reach $15 next Sept. 30. It’s currently $13 for non-tipped workers, and $9.98 for workers who earn tips. On Sept. 30, 2025, that minimum hourly rate will rise to $14.

    State Attorney General candidate Rodriguez, who most recently served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Joe Biden, is keenly aware of the lack of attention in Florida to the issue of wage theft. A longtime employment lawyer, Rodriguez joined other worker advocates roughly 20 years ago as they sought transparency on minimum wage enforcement from then-Florida AG Pam Bondi. 

    “Quite frankly, it sucks.” 

    Morgan & Morgan attorney Ryan Morgan

    “The attorney general’s office is simply not enforcing the minimum wage in the way that other states do,” Rodriguez told ABC News affiliate WTXL in 2015. “We basically have it in the constitution and we have it in the books, but as far as any state enforcement … that is it.”

    Floridians first voted to establish a state minimum wage, separate from the federal minimum wage, in 2004. At the time, the federal minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. 

    Although federal investigators in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division are authorized to investigate complaints of wage theft in Florida (including but not limited to minimum wage violations), they are only authorized to recover wages up to the federal minimum wage — which currently sits at just $7.25 an hour.

    Plus, the federal Wage and Hour Division is understaffed and overburdened. As of May, the division had fewer than half the number of investigators it had at its peak in 1978, according to a recent analysis, despite the fact that it’s today tasked with protecting the rights of three times as many workers.

    In the absence of help from the state government in combating wage theft, some community organizations — including the Farmworker Association of Florida — have stepped up to help fill gaps. In addition, at least a half-dozen local municipalities in Florida, including Osceola County, have established their own local wage theft programs.

    The Farmworker Association of Florida works with the U.S. Department of Labor to help victims of wage theft recover pay they are lawfully owed.

    Rodriguez was part of the effort to create Florida’s first local wage recovery program in Miami-Dade County back in 2010, as part of a coalition of groups in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In just the first year alone, the program resulted in more than 600 prosecutions and $1.7 million recovered in stolen pay, the New York Times reported at the time.

    “The county didn’t have a big budget,” Rodriguez recalled. “So the design that I came up with for these groups was sort of based on almost like code enforcement, right? It’s a self-enforcement thing. You get a hearing officer, you get an order that then can be turned into a court order, but you don’t need a lawyer. What you get is you get an opportunity to come in and prove your case in front of a hearing examiner, and then you can go ahead and enforce it,” he explained.

    Since employment lawyers have a low acceptance rate for wage theft cases as it is — especially instances of wage theft that only involve a few hundred or thousand dollars — the importance of having an alternative program is important.

    “Our acceptance rates on the wage and hour cases are below 10 percent,” Morgan & Morgan attorney Ryan Morgan previously told Orlando Weekly, adding that this is in line with acceptance rates of other firms. 

    “Even we just don’t have enough manpower and hours of the day to handle every case. And so when you’re looking at it, you do have to make difficult choices at times,” Morgan added. “And quite frankly, it sucks.” 

    Vying to become Florida’s next chief legal officer

    Florida’s Attorney General is an elected official who serves as the state’s chief legal officer, responsible for protecting Floridians from fraud, enforcing antitrust laws, defending the state in civil litigation cases, and going after criminal activity such as drug trafficking and identity theft.

    The AG is typically elected by Florida voters every four years. Uthmeier, a Republican, was appointed by DeSantis to fill the remainder of former AG Moody’s term earlier this year following her own appointment to the U.S. Senate. His current term ends in January 2027.

    Rodriguez, based in the Miami area, faces an uphill battle to defeat Uthmeier. As the incumbent — who routinely finds himself in headlines for his enforcement of the state’s harsh immigration policies — Uthmeier has name recognition. He’s a Republican, backed by his party in a state where the GOP currently has a more than 1 million edge over Democrats in voter registration.

    Rodriguez, who’s running on an anti-corruption platform, was first elected to the Florida House in 2012 before running for the state Senate in 2016, where he served for four years. Rodriguez in 2020 narrowly lost his bid for re-election to the Florida Senate by just 40 votes to Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia, after corporate interests reportedly paid a “ghost” candidate with the same last name as his to run as a no-party candidate against him.

    “It came out that [Florida Power & Light] was the funder of that, and the reason why they were so upset with me is because there was nobody else in state government standing up for their customers and against them than me,” said Rodriguez, who had filed legislation in 2019 that FPL opposed. “They wanted to take me out,” he continued. “And I think that, you know, if voters want any proof that they’re going to have a fighter in the Attorney General’s office, I think that’s it.”

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    ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ and ‘Deportation Depot’ are Florida’s two main detention centers working in conjunction with ICE

    ‘So, you know, not all the studies find that, but some of the studies do,’ Florida Surgeon General Ladapo said

    The announcement came shortly after the Miami Dade College’s Board of Trustees approved the transfer of property



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    McKenna Schueler
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  • ‘Violent extremism’ the focus of Florida AG’s new tip line – Orlando Weekly

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    Credit: via James Uthmeier/X

    Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas has found probable cause that a Clay County teacher displayed “gross immorality” in posting about Charlie Kirk’s death, he announced Monday as Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a tip line to report “violent extremism.”

    The teacher, left nameless by Kamoutsas, could lose her teaching license after she posted to social media, “This may not be the obituary. [sic] We were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me,” News 4 Jax reported. Kamoutsas said the post included an article about Kirk’s assassination, which occurred at a college in Utah. 

    In keeping with his promise two weeks ago to investigate teachers making “despicable comments” about Kirk’s death, Kamoutsas said he found probable cause on four Education Code violations. Either the teacher can forfeit her license, or she can be tried in front of department’s Education Practices Commission or the Department of Administrative Hearings.

    The commissioner is seeking the revocation of the teacher’s license. 

    “As these posts continue to circulate, more and more students are exposed to the dangerous and false idea that violence is an acceptable response to differing beliefs, an idea that has no place and will have no place here in Florida schools,” Kamoutsas said. 

    The four standards Kamoutsas alleges the teacher breached are gross immorality, failure to protect the health, safety and welfare of students, reduced effectiveness as an educator, and failing to distinguish her personal views from the school’s.

    “Holding educators accountable for speech that celebrates violence in schools is not a violation of free speech, it is a necessary step to uphold the standards of the teaching profession and the safety of our schools,” Kamoutsas said. 

    Last week, Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar told the Phoenix that the commissioner’s letter to superintendents vowing investigations sends a “chilling effect throughout the profession.”

    “For the commissioner to say there’s no longer a second-chance mentality in education and that he’s going to personally investigate and essentially be the investigator, the prosecutor, and the judge and jury in all of these cases is quite concerning,” Spar said.

    New portal for complaints

    On a broader scope, Uthmeier’s office opened the “Combatting Violent Extremism Portal” “where people will be able to report anything they observe or hear that is a call for violence or a threat for violence against other individuals,” he said. 

    “Let me be clear, we respect the First Amendment more than anybody. We’re not going to be the cancel culture that we’ve seen from so long from the Left. We’re not going to believe in silencing individuals. But there’s a big difference when it comes to a threat of violence, a call for violence. That is not protected by the First Amendment,” Uthmeier said. 

    Since Kirk’s death, people nationwide have lost jobs for speaking about Kirk’s death in a manner their employer views as disfavored, such as late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

    Teachers are held to higher standards than many other professions, the state officials said.

    “It’s never been more important for people to speak up, for us to have safe academic environments where people feel confident to engage in discussion, free from attack, free from violence,” Uthmeier said. 

    The portal, not exclusive to education settings, allows people to submit screenshots, videos, or other evidence of threatened violence to Uthmeier’s office, anonymously if they want to.

    “We must protect before people are shot, before explosives go off,” Uthmeier said. 

    Warning against abusing the portal, Uthmeier said, “We’re going to take everything seriously and, if you abuse this, if you provide something in a dishonest fashion to law enforcement, we’ll hold you accountable as well.”

    The campaign in-part mimics the Office of Parental Rights Uthmeier added to his office earlier this year to field complaints alleging violation of parental-rights laws. 

    “The First Amendment does not protect speech that is likely and intended to provoke immediate acts of violence, or speech that expresses a serious intent to commit a specific act of violence, but it does protect robust free expression, which includes criticism of the past words and actions of prominent public figures,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said in an online statement last week following the state’s announcement it would investigate teachers.

    “Dissent, disagreement, and counterspeech that criticizes political views should not be confused with condoning or encouraging violence,” the ACLU said, and retaliation for such speech “feeds hostility and division.”

    After Kirk was killed, the ACLU continued, “Most people likely encountered speech they found despicable no matter where they fall on the political spectrum — that is the nature of a democracy where free speech is protected. While calling for further violence or condoning what happened to Charlie Kirk is wrong, many of the posts being cited for retaliation constitute core protected speech.”

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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    The portal allows people to submit screenshots, videos, or other evidence of threatened violence to Uthmeier’s office

    The Florida House’s property tax committee had its third meeting to explore how to slash property taxes

    Two deputies are seen following the animal from the front porch to the backyard, which the gator got to by ramming open a gate



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    Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix
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  • ‘Gas station morphine’: Florida issues emergency rule for kratom 7-OH – Orlando Weekly

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    Credit: via James Uthmeier/X

    Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson announced a new rule Thursday demanding retailers of an increasingly popular herbal substance list how much of an opioid-like compound exists in each package.

    The emergency rule will add yet another layer of security against the 7-OH compound in kratom products, a Southeast Asian plant known for its versatile opiate or stimulant properties.

    Simpson’s announcement came one month after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier listed 7-OH as a Schedule 1 substance, placing it alongside drugs like heroin and LSD.

    “We are filing a new emergency labeling rule that ensures that manufacturers and retailers can’t hide behind fake labels or misleading marketing,” Simpson said during a Jacksonville press conference. “Every product must clearly state the 7-OH concentration in parts per million.”

    The emergency labeling rule issued by Wilton Simpson Credit: via Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

    If the concentration is over 400 parts per million, the “gas station morphine” will be removed, Simpson added. The move is part of a broader Florida mission to eradicate kratom sales as a whole, and follows a 2024 law banning kratom for those under 21.

    The main target is 7-OH, or 7-hydroxymitragynine. The guidance first came in July from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Food and Drug Administration with a report citing serious concerns with 7-OH’s ability to bind to opioid receptors. There are no FDA-approved 7-OH drugs, yet an estimated 16 million kratom users nationwide have generated more than $2 billion in retail sales, Medscape reported.

    Two weeks later, Uthmeier derided the compound as 13 times stronger than morphine and promptly issued an emergency rule scheduling 7-OH as a highly illegal Schedule 1 substance.

    An emergency rule lasts 90 days and must be taken up by the Legislature to become permanently part of Florida law.

    “I want to thank the commissioner here and his law enforcement team for getting almost 18,000 products off the shelves that are dangerous,” Uthmeier said Thursday. “[But] this emergency rule is only good until the Legislature comes back to meet. … They’re the policy-making branch, and they can either ratify the rule, amend it, or impose restrictions at their discretion.”

    The 2026 session begins on Jan. 13.

    Update: This story now includes an image of Simpson’s emergency labeling rule.

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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    ‘Stripped for Parts’ only becomes more timely with each passing news cycle

    Black previously was a runner-up on Dracula’s third season

    Drivers caught running red lights face a potential $158 fine



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    Livia Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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  • Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ now wants federal money

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    Credit: Photo by Dave Decker

    A federal appeals court last week ordered the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center to remain open partially because it lacked federal ties. A week later, Florida formally applied for federal funds.

    The state’s request for reimbursement for its spending on the migrant detention facility in the heart of the Everglades came just days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit hit pause on a federal judge’s order shutting down the center over environmental concerns. The 2-1 vote claimed that federal environmental laws don’t apply because Florida officials haven’t used any federal money.

    But less than eight days after the ruling — which stayed all aspects of the case — the Florida Division of Emergency Management asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be reimbursed, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Florida Phoenix in an email.

    “The State of Florida submitted an application for reimbursement to [FEMA],” the spokesperson said. Although they didn’t comment on what day the application was made nor for how much money, this confirmed Politico’s reporting that FDEM’s executive director, Kevin Guthrie, said the state had applied for federal money.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis has long promised that Florida would be reimbursed for its detention center spending, although neither his office nor FDEM ever clarified when they planned to ask for the money. Federal authorities similarly lauded the facility as a joint effort, but showed no signs of chipping in until last week.

    “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” the DHS official said. “These new facilities are in large part to be funded by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program.”

    The Shelter and Services program allocated $608.4 million toward FEMA’s new Detention Support Grant Program, specifically designed to expedite Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mass detention and deportation agenda. If FEMA approves Florida’s request, the money will be awarded by Sep. 30. The Everglades facility is estimated to cost around $450 million for the year.

    The attorney general’s office redirected questions to FDEM, which did not respond to questions about the application’s timeline.

    ‘So what do you say, judges?’

    In a 2-1 decision on Sep. 4, the Eleventh Circuit both paused federal trial judge Kathleen Williams’ order to shut down the facility and fully stayed the case. The lawsuit was brought against the state by the Miccosukee Tribe and environmental groups Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biodiversity.

    They claimed the center, located within the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve, was harming the environment and violating the National Environmental Policy Act.

    But judges Barbara Lagoa and Elizabeth Branch, both Trump appointees, ruled that Williams had erred by applying the federal law to a center that had exclusively received state funds. Florida hadn’t even applied for federal reimbursement, they argued. The activists have since asked the appeals court to reconsider their decision to halt the lawsuit.

    If the judges don’t, Miami attorney Joseph DeMaria said the plaintiffs would be stymied unless they can “un-stay” the case — even though the majority opinion was largely predicated on the lack of federal ties.

    “Unless they can get the case unstuck, there’s nothing they can do,” said DeMaria, who once worked as a prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Miami Organized Crime Strike Force. [The state] played it cute by saying, ‘We haven’t formally agreed yet, so federal law doesn’t apply.’”

    He posed a rhetorical question to the appellate judges on the case: “You said that the feds haven’t agreed to pay, so there’s no jurisdiction to enforce the federal environmental law, but then almost immediately after you said that, they went and agreed to pay. So what do you say, judges?”

    Attorneys for the Friends of the Everglades declined to comment, while the governor’s office, the Miccosukee Tribe, and the Center for Biodiversity did not respond to requests for comment.

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    A federal appeals court last week ordered the center to remain open partially because it lacked federal ties

    Video footage shows a man kicking a person on the ground at the site of the formerly rainbow-colored crosswalk.

    Uthmeier said the court’s ruling was effective ‘now,’ but his spokesman said there was a 15-day window



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    Livia Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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  • ‘Send them home’: Florida leaders support revoking visas of those praising Charlie Kirk’s death

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    Credit: via Shutterstock

    Three Florida Cabinet members would support revocation by the U.S. Department of State of visas held by legal immigrants who celebrate the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

    Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Attorney General James Uthmeier argue admission into the United States is a “privilege” that shouldn’t be extended to immigrants who praise Kirk’s murder, Ingoglia and an Uthmeier aide told The Florida Phoenix. This comes one day after the State Department warned immigrants against mocking or praising 31-year-old Kirk’s death.

    “Immigrants get visas, among other reasons, because the U.S. has First Amendment freedoms they don’t have in their own countries. If they’re caught celebrating the assassination of someone expressing free speech, they obviously haven’t learned the lesson,” Ingoglia, who sponsored stringent anti-illegal immigration legislation as a state senator, said in a text message.

    “Send them home.”

    Uthmeier’s communications director, Jeremy Redfern, said the attorney general’s office would “absolutely” support revoking these individuals’ visas and denying future entry to migrants who praised Kirk’s murder.

    “Getting a visa to come into the U.S. is a privilege, not a right,” Redfern said. After this story was published, Agriculture commissioner Wilton Simpson added that he makes “three members” of the Florida cabinet to support visa revocation.

    The Department of State directed staff Thursday to “undertake appropriate action” for immigrants who “glorify” Kirk’s death. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau added that these individuals “are not welcome visitors to our country.”

    A State Department spokesperson told the Phoenix via email that the Trump administration doesn’t think visas should be granted to “persons whose presence in our country does not align” with national security interests.

    It wouldn’t be the first time the Trump administration has authorized visa cancellation, revocation, or withholding from current or prospective U.S. immigrants. In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the use of artificial intelligence to identify foreign-born pro-Palestine protesters and revoke their student visas.

    The move was aligned with President Donald Trump’s January executive order targeting visa holders who “threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology.” It also aligns with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ call for the federal government to deport foreign-born students who he said were setting up university encampments to protest Israel.

    The governor’s office declined to comment for this story. State Sen. Jason Pizzo, an independent who formerly served as the Senate’s Minority Leader, told the Phoenix that although an immigration attorney would be more clear on the legalities of mass visa revocation, national security and public safety is cause for removal.

    “Anyone here on a visa, celebrating the assassination of an American citizen, should be swiftly revoked and removed,” Pizzo said.

    Honors planned

    Kirk, co-founder of the conservative Turning Point USA, was shot and killed in Orem, Utah, Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University. While highly controversial, Kirk was a massively influential figure on the right who gained popularity by traveling to college campuses to debate students on left-leaning issues.

    He’d forged close relationships with President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who canceled his scheduled 9/11 memorial appearance in New York to instead visit Kirk’s wife and two children. Trump has announced that Kirk will posthumously receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, has urged Congress to build a statue of Kirk in the Capitol halls.

    Update: This story has been updated to adjust the headline to match comments from Wilton Simpson and to include a quote from State Sen. Jason Pizzo.

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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    The threat from Florida’s top education official comes after allegations of “despicable” comments being made online by teachers.

    Artists will transform 49 parking spaces into colorful art installations

    The Honey House concept, however, will live on at Orange Tree Antiques Mall



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    Livia Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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  • Florida AG hints suspension for Orlando state attorney Worrell again

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    Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier will not defend a fatal road rage case prosecuted by state attorney Monique Worrell if any conviction goes to an appeals court, he warned in a Monday letter.

    Instead, he may ask Gov. Ron DeSantis to suspend her. Again. It would be the latest strike in a lengthy feud between the DeSantis administration and Worrell, Orange County’s Democratic chief prosecutor, who only just retook her seat after the governor removed her from office.

    Uthmeier will insist Worrell made a “plain error” in choosing to prosecute Tina Allgeo — a 47-year-old woman who shot and killed a man who attacked her in her car during a December road rage incident — if Allgeo is convicted and appeals her case. Uthmeier will also evaluate whether “further intervention is warranted.”

    “Your decision to pursue this case as you have despite Allgeo’s self-defense immunity under at least two Florida statutes may very likely require my office to admit plain error on appeal,” Uthmeier wrote in the letter, accusing Worrell of ignoring the state’s “stand your ground” laws allowing self-defense killings.

    Uthmeier just hours later asked Worrell to investigate a former state senator for posting the whereabouts of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. He wondered whether the ex-lawmaker, Linda Stewart, was “harassing” law enforcement.

    As Florida’s chief legal officer, Uthmeier exercises a general “superintendence” role over Florida’s 20 elected state attorneys, although they function independently of him. The power to suspend a state attorney lies solely with the governor.

    “Your actions likely constitute a breach of your ethical obligations. And they may also constitute misfeasance, malfeasance, neglect of duty, and incompetence,” he continued, reciting the Florida Constitution’s provisions allowing the governor to suspend an out-of-line officeholder.

    “I strongly urge you to reconsider your prosecution of Allgeo.”

    When asked whether DeSantis would consider suspending Worrell, the governor’s office pointed to DeSantis’s comments at the State Freedom Caucus last week:

    “If you are a prosecutor, particularly those funded by George Soros, please know that if you don’t enforce the law, I will remove you from your post.”

    The Orange County Grand Jury indicted Allgeo in February for the second-degree murder with a firearm of 42-year-old Mihail Tsvetkov. Surveillance footage shows Allgeo outside of her car, taking photos of Tsvetkov’s plates. When Tsvetkov drove away, she pursued him and struck his car with hers.

    A red light camera video then follows Tsvetkov as he exits his car, yanks open Allgeo’s car door, and begins to beat her, seemingly attempting to pull her out of her vehicle. Allgeo then pulls the trigger on her firearm, shooting Tsvetkov “in the face” and killing him almost instantly, News 6 reported.

    Allgeo later said that she initially confronted Tsvetkov because he tailgated her and allegedly purposely hit her car with his own.

    “This is a case of great public importance that needed to be reviewed by the Grand Jury to determine whether the evidence supported an indictment,” Worrell said after the grand jury indictment. “Gun violence stemming from senseless disputes will not be tolerated, and our office will hold those who commit these acts accountable.”

    This isn’t the first time Worrell and Uthmeier have clashed. In April, he accused her of both slow-walking and ignoring a mounting backlog of cases. He called a press conference to send six statewide prosecutors to help her with the workload, jabbing at her alleged ties to Democrat mega-donor Soros in the process.

    This followed weeks of back-and-forth between the legal politicos, which involved accusations of Worrell being “soft on crime” and Uthmeier being “uninformed.”

    Before Uthmeier was sworn in as attorney general in February, he served as DeSantis’s chief of staff. He held this title in August 2023, when DeSantis suspended Worrell for allegedly neglecting “her duty to faithfully prosecute crime in her jurisdiction.”

    Although Worrell failed to get the Florida Supreme Court to overturn her suspension, she won a second term in November. This unseated Andrew Bain, whom DeSantis had appointed to replace her. DeSantis had also suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren but he failed for re-election last year.

    “You may not like Florida’s self-defense laws,” Uthmeier wrote Monday. “But those laws reflect the simple truth that a Floridian — a woman in this case — has the right to use deadly force to stop a man from brutalizing or killing her.”

    Worrell’s office did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publishing.

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