Ladra makes 2022 judicial picks public

It’s time for Ladra to make her recommendations for this Aug. 23 ballot. There’s nothing any of the candidates can do at this point to change my mind and early voting has already started.

Hell, more than 100,000 people have voted already (more on that later).

Let’s start with the judicial races, because they are countywide.

The most pressing race is the challenge to Miami-Dade County Judge Fred Seraphin by political hatchetman Renier Diaz de la Portilla, a failed politician and lousy attorney who is using his brother, Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, to fundraise and smear his opponent.

All by himself, Seraphin deserves to keep his job. He has done it well. He is liked. He had one mishap with a lactating public defender years ago — refusing to let her break to pump breast milk. But he owned up to his mistake and apologized. When was the last time a DLP did that? And that assistant public defender is voting for Seraphin.

But even if he hadn’t apologized, there is no way that we can let Renier Diaz de la Portilla become a judge. In fact, it’s one of the signs of the apocalypse. Ladra would vote for Mickey Mouse before Fredo.

And the Cuban American Bar Association agrees. It gave Renier some abysmal numbers in its judicial poll this year. More than 71% found Baby DLP unqualified to be a judge and more than 58% said he did not possess the appropriate character to sit as a judge. Ouch.

In Group 5, please vote for Judge Fred Seraphin.

In the other county judicial races, Ladra is also voting for both incumbents.

County Judge Jeffrey Kolokoff deserves to keep his job. Ladra specifically likes his experience in the Mental Health Problem Solving unit that how he treats license suspensions, trying to help defendants fix their issue rather than go to jail or have a record for something minimal. I don’t like that he’s self-funding his campaign to the tune of $350K. But I like less that Lissette de la Rosa has cushy ties to the insurance industry. And I’m not keen on Hispanic candidates running against non-Hispanics just on their name alone.

In Group 19, please vote for Jeffrey Kolokoff

In the last county group, it’s easy not to like County Judge Scott Janowitz. He was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and bounced around law firms before serving only three years as a prosecutor. It’s almost equally easy to like Alicia Garcia Priovolos. A prosecutor for 16 years, she has worked in human trafficking since 2018 and is now the director of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Human Trafficking Unit. But then she goes and gets endorsed by the Christian Family Coalition, a hate mongering organization which is anti-women’s rights, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-education, pro conversion therapy and just pro-hate that also endorsed Renier Diaz de la Portilla. That’s a deal breaker. Ladra votes against all their candidates.

In Group 26, please vote for Scott Janowitz.

In the circuit court races, the CFC also endorsed Teresa Maria Cervera and Oscar Rodriguez-Fonts. So, please vote for their opponents.

While all the judicial races are important, the Cervera race is the one to get the most attention. That’s because nobody knew that was her name. The candidate has been Tessa Tylman for all her professional life. She only changed it to her husband’s name — and went from Tessa to Teresa — earlier this year in preparation for this race. That’s sneaky. Not a trait we want to see in a judge anyway. Besides, Circuit Court Judge Lody Jean, the first Haitian American female judge, has gotten great reviews from attorneys.

In Circuit Court Group 3, please vote for Lody Jean.

Rodriguez-Fonts has been challenged by Jason Bloch, who has already been a judge, so we know he can do the job. Bloch was a prosecutor for 20 years before he was appointed to the bench in 2014 by then Gov. Rick Scott. He lost in 2017 to Marcia del Rey. He is completely self-funding his comeback bid, to the tune of $403,500, and that is concerning. But he is backed by SAVE, United Teachers of Dade and, most importantly, the Florida League of Prosecutors.

Also, did we mention that Rodriguez-Fonts was endorsed by the CFC? He was also the only judicial candidate who attended their victory luncheon after the Roe vs. Wade reversal.

In Circuit Court Group 52, please vote for Jason Bloch.

It’s a little tougher call in the other two circuit races.

Judge Robert Watson is generally liked and endorsed by almost every acronym under the sun: SAVE, UTD, the PBA, the FOP, the local SEIU, the AFL-CIO, the LBA — though one has to wonder if the Latin Builders Association nod should matter — as well as the Miami Herald, the United Faculty of Miami Dade College and firefighters.

Ladra doesn’t like the fact that he hired Renier Diaz de la Portilla for his campaign before Baby DLP qualified for his own race in county court. Watson told me that he stopped using Renier DLP after that. But a $10,000 payment to First Stone Management, which is Alex DLP’s company — and which has the same address as Renier’s law firm (read: fathers’ mattress factory) — was made on June 1, according to his campaign finance reports .

He’s also retained Benedict Keuhne, attorney to both Alex DLP and Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo — dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres — and las malas lenguas say he used his courtroom during working hours to record some campaign video.

Brenda Guerrero has also come under fire for playing the name game. She works under the name Brenda Gitchev Guerrero, the middle of which she conveniently dropped for the ballot. But at least that’s her name and not her husband’s name. She was always a Guerrero.

She may look very young, but she has much more experience than it looks, working more than 1,500 bench trials, as she tells everyone she runs into. What she doesn’t say is that she has paid her dues since college, interning at Dade Legal Aid in the domestic violence division.

Also, she does not have an affiliation to the Diaz de la Portillas. Let’s give the vice president of the Dominican American Bar Association credit for that.

In Circuit Court Group 20, please vote for Brenda Guerrero.

Incumbent Circuit Court Judge Mark Blumstein has also taken some flack for his advertising with his Navy uniform on. He said it was a blunder. But his answers to every question is that he served in the Navy.

Still his parents are Cubans who left the island before 1959 and he speaks really good Spanish, for a Blumstein.

Ariel Rodriguez is a federal trial attorney in bankruptcy and commercial litigation. He has also done some consumer law and seems to have the experience we need for the coming times. A former law clerk to U.S. bankruptcy judge and attorney in private practice, his experience ranges from trial to appellate court practice to sports calls as a referee for high school and college games.

In Circuit Court Group 34, you’ll have to decide for yourselves.

A judicial poll by the members of the Miami-Dade Bar Association agreed with Ladra on almost everything, splitting on the Blumstein-Rodriguez race 50/50. The only place we disagreed was the Watson-Guerrero race, but maybe they don’t know about the DLP connection.

Still don’t know whose box to check off? You can watch this candidates’ forum to see for yourself.

Elections 2022, judicial races, Renier Diaz de la Portilla

Ladra makes 2022 judicial picks public added by Ladra on August 13, 2022
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