A scandal of falsified drug arrests is spreading at a Florida sheriff’s office that has also spent more than $1.33 million settling excessive force lawsuits and is at the center of the increasingly troubled Robert Kraft case.
Melissa Morales was riding her bicycle near the Flamingo Diner just off of U.S. Highway 1 in Stuart, Florida, when she was stopped by a Martin County sheriff’s deputy. It was 10 p.m. but still warm on an evening in late October 2018, and Deputy Steven O’Leary told Morales he stopped her because her bike had no lights.
Morales apologized and promised to get lights, but O’Leary decided to search her purse regardless. Inside, he found what he described as a “white, rocklike substance.” He then ran a field test that he said yielded a positive result for methamphetamine. The 37-year-old Floridian told O’Leary that what he claimed was meth was “just a rock.”
Despite Morales’ protestations and the fact that field tests are notoriously unreliable, O’Leary arrested Morales and took her to jail. O’Leary said that when he searched Morales at the facility, he “observed a white substance fall out of Melissa’s pant leg and onto the ground … the same substance I had located in Melissa’s purse.” O’Leary said this second substance also tested positive for methamphetamine, and he charged her with possession of the drug and introducing contraband into a correctional facility.
Because Morales couldn’t afford to pay her $10,000 bond, she was jailed 49 days in Martin County. She also faced a 10-year prison sentence. On Dec. 11, Morales entered a guilty plea in her case. She was sentenced to six months in jail, ordered to pay hundreds of dollars in fines, and had her driver’s license revoked.
But on Jan. 16, Morales was freed. The judge vacated her sentence after Morales’s public defender filed a motion stating he had been informed of “newly discovered issues surrounding the arresting officer in this case.”
“The substance alleged to be methamphetamine is, in fact, not a controlled substance,” wrote Shane Manship of the 19th Circuit Public Defender’s Office.
A history of excessive force
Morales is now one of 11 people freed from jail following revelations that O’Leary falsified narcotics arrests. Substances that O’Leary claimed were narcotics turned out to be sand, laundry detergent, and headache medicine. Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said the State Attorney’s Office notified the agency Jan. 9 about O’Leary’s questionable arrests. Since then, the Martin County Sheriff has been reviewing 80 other arrests made by O’Leary during his 11 months with the agency. Snyder fired O’Leary on Jan. 15, but no criminal charges have been brought against the officer.
The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to emails seeking comment.
O’Leary’s bogus narcotics arrests aren’t the only instances of misconduct in the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, the same agency that spearheaded the Orchids of Asia Day Spa bust yielding an arrest of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on solicitation of prostitution charges.
Since 2000, the Martin County sheriff has spent more than $1.33 million settling lawsuits brought by people who say officers used excessive force, falsified reports, or made wrongful arrests.
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