Key Largo Lobster Mobsters Sentenced to Jail Time

By DAVID GOODHUE
dgoodhue@keysreporter.com

Michael Cavagnaro, the former Key Largo elected official convicted of molesting lobster traps in June, was denied a new trial Friday and sentenced to nine months in county jail.

His son, 33-year-old Michael Cavagnaro Jr., was sentenced to four months in jail.

Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia also sentenced both men to four years probation and eight hours a month of community service, ordered their commercial fishing licenses revoked and banned them from the water on both the oceanside and bayside of Monroe County.

Bill Heffernan, the attorney who represented both men during their trial and only the younger Cavagnaro at Friday’s sentencing hearing, said he and Joel Hirschhorn, the elder Cavagnaro’s attorney, have filed an appeal with the state’s Third Court of Appeal.

“I truly believe they are innocent. This is a sad case,” Heffernan said in an interview.

Garcia set bail at $50,000 each. It was not clear at press time if the father and son posted bail and were released.

The Cavagnaros, both commercial lobster fishermen, were charged with tampering with another commercial angler’s trap on Aug. 25, 2009. At the time, Cavagnaro was an elected member of the Key Largo Fire and Emergency Medical Services District. Gov. Charlie Crist removed him from office following his arrest.

A jury convicted the men on June 23.

Heffernan argued during Friday’s hearing at the Plantation Key Courthouse that “the weight of the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict in this case.” He also said several of the tactics used by the prosecution unfairly prejudiced the jury.

First, Heffernan argued that prosecutors violated Garcia’s instructions not to mention anything that happened 14 days beyond Aug. 25, 2009.

During the trial, prosecutor Colleen Dunne questioned Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers and several fishermen. They testified that no traps belonging to the Cavagnaros were found in the area where witnesses said the Cavagnaros had pulled another fisherman’s trap.

The FWC officers checked the area more than 14 days after the Cavagnaros were arrested. Heffernan argued that mentioning that in the trial violated Garcia’s instructions. Dunne countered that since the elder Cavagnaro claimed he and his son were in the area checking on their traps that day, it was the FWC’s responsibility to verify if any were there. None were ever found, she said.

Heffernan also argued for a new trial based on a witness he said Dunne called to the stand specifically to humiliate. Dunne said she called the witness, Michael Cavagnaro’s girlfriend, because the defense had said she would testify but then removed her name. Her testimony did not match earlier statements she made, which Dunne pointed out while she was on the stand.

The Cavagnaros hadn’t planned to testify during the four-day trial, Heffernan said, but were forced to after Cavagnaro’s girlfriend’s testimony differed from her deposition on key areas of the case.

Hirschhorn also tried to get results of a polygraph test he arranged for the Cavagnaros submitted as evidence for a new trial. Both men scored high on the questions they were asked, Hirschhorn said. “They were two of the highest scores I have ever seen,” he said.

Garcia denied the request, saying polygraph results are not reliable, and these results were particularly questionable because the defense hired the technician and no one from law enforcement was present. “The stress levels are a lot different when the results do not have to be considered,” Garcia said.

Heffernan and Hirschhorn offered several other arguments in their motion for a new trial, all of which Garcia denied.

Trap molesting is a third-degree felony, and third-degree felonies can in some cases be punishable by up to five years in prison. But a law passed by the state Legislature went into effect last summer that makes it almost impossible for a judge to sentence prison time for a non-violent third-degree felony. Prosecutors must prove the person would be a threat to society if he or she were not incarcerated, Garcia said.

Nevertheless, Dunne wanted the Cavagnaros sentenced to two years in prison, arguing to Garcia that they were a threat to the Keys’ commercial fishing industry.

“[The law] doesn’t mean they have to be a violent threat… . “They molested traps from brother fishermen who were already suffering from the down economy,” Dunne said

Garcia disagreed, taking into account the scores of letters from neighbors, former colleagues and family members praising the men’s characters and past good deeds, as well as the elder Cavagnaro’s service as a member of the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Department. He worked for Palm Beach County from the 1980s to 2001, when he left on disability because of work-related injuries.

Garcia said he also took into account the elder Cavagnaro’s time volunteering at Ground Zero in Manhattan days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

One elderly man told Garcia that the Cavagnaros went out of their way to help their neighbors on several occasions.

“”My wife has taken ill several times recently, and Mike was at the door every single time,” neighbor Donald Balletti said. “It’s totally inconceivable that he would be involved in something like this.”