Miami prosecutors ousted from case of gang boss on death row over misconduct allegations

A long-time Miami-Dade prosecutor was dismissed from the high-profile case of a notorious gang leader after being accused of misconduct, including gathering witnesses at the Miami Police Department and coaching their testimonies.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson on Wednesday ousted prosecutor Michael Von Zamft from the case of Corey Smith, a convicted killer believed to be the ringleader of Liberty City’s violent John Doe drug gang.

In the order, Wolfson said she made the decision after a weeks-long hearing during which Smith’s defense team presented newly discovered evidence in a bid to to request a new trial and dismiss the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office from the case.

“During the hearing, it became apparent there was a serious issue regarding possible witness testimony manipulation by the Assistant State Attorneys on this case — not only in the past, but also in the present,” Wolfson said.

Wolfson, however, denied the defense’s motion to dismiss the entire Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office from the case. The judge has yet to rule on whether or not she will vacate Smith’s convictions.

Von Zamft — and prosecutor Stephen Mitchell — “lost sight of their responsibility, and justice demands their disqualification,” Wolfson said in the filing. She said she dismissed Mitchell because he “emphatically argued” that there has been no unethical conduct, which indicates he shares Von Zamft’s “prosecutorial philosophy of winning at all costs.”

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office had not responded Thursday to the Miami Herald’s request for comment on the prosecutors’ dismissal.

In a statement, defense attorneys Craig Whisenhunt and Allison Miller said the photographs, recorded phone calls and other evidence “left no doubt as to the egregious misconduct” of prosecutors Von Zamft, Mitchell and Joshua Hubner, who resigned in February.

“We greatly appreciate the court’s well-reasoned order disqualifying these attorneys and referring the matter to the Florida Bar,” the statement said. “While the court declined to disqualify the entire 11th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office, we cannot help but remain concerned that given the tenure of these attorneys, the issues raised were not unique to them or this case.”

Smith, who was on Florida’s death row, has been back in court in effort to be resentenced. In 2017, he was granted a new sentencing hearing after the Florida Supreme Court found that the state’s death penalty process was unconstitutional because it didn’t require that jurors make a unanimous decision.

READ MORE: John Doe gang boss on death row for murders. Can Miami prosecutors fairly retry case?

In 1999, Smith was convicted in federal court of drug and firearm charges. A year later, a Miami-Dade grand jury indicted Smith and seven others on 17 counts in relation to crimes committed in connection with Liberty City’s violent John Doe drug gang. By 2004, Smith was found guilty of four murders by a Miami-Dade jury. He was sentenced to death in 2005.

Smith’s high-profile Miami-Dade trial — heavily armed law enforcement flooded the courthouse, and Smith wore a stun belt to court each day to prevent his escape — came five years after the federal government tried to dismantle the John Does, named for the toe tags tied to unidentified bodies at the morgue.

Evidence against prosecutors

Tricia Geter, who was Smith’s girlfriend from 1993 to 1998, testified that she and other state witnesses were brought to the Miami Police Department for “the express purpose of coordinating their testimonies,” according to Wolfson’s order. Prosecutors participated in those meetings, too.

In exchange for their cooperation, witnesses were given food, drinks, tobacco products, visits from family and friends and even conjugal visits, according to the court documents. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office wrote letters to the U.S. State Attorney’s Office for the North District of Florida regarding Geter’s cooperation with police.

At the time, Geter had been sentenced to 300 months in federal prison for distribution of cocaine. That sentence was reduced to 60 months. Several of the letters, which weren’t originally turned over to the defense, were signed by Von Zamft and Hubner. A Miami detective also testified that he was Geter’s “handler” in the early 2000s.

In January 2023, state witness Anthony Fail signed an affidavit further backing up these allegations. Von Zamft, according to the order, sent Miami-Dade State Attorney’s investigators to interview Fail after the affidavit.

Fail then changed his story.

“Instead of investigating the merits of the claim by speaking to detectives...he opened an investigation for witness tampering into the defendant’s investigative team,” Wolfson said in the order.

As the hearings wrapped up, Wolfson heard “from Mr Von Zamft’s own mouth why he and his counterpart should be disqualified from this case,” she said in the order.

“On television, Perry Mason, defense attorney extraordinaire, always managed to find the smoking gun at the end of every episode,” the judge said. “In real life, this happens very rarely. It happened here.”

Defense attorneys played an August 2022 recorded jail call between Von Zamft and codefendant-turned-state witness Latravis Gallashaw. According to Wolfson, the call contained two “glaring instances of misconduct, or at the very least, severe recklessness.”

In the conversation, the prosecutor and Gallashaw discussed issues with the witnesses in the case. At some point, Gallashaw asked Von Zamft if he has thought about “rehabilitating” one of the witnesses.

Von Zamft replied that he was trying to arrange for Gallashaw to be in the prison courtyard with witness Demetrius Jones and another inmate named William Brown, but that the Department of Corrections wouldn’t allow it. Brown is a witness in another capital case prosecuted by Von Zamft.

During the hearings, Von Zamft said that the defense was “spinning” the phone call. But when Wolfson asked for his side of the story, she wrote that the prosecutor “advanced a specious argument” about the inmates safely being in the courtyard together.

In another conversation, the prosecutor spoke with Gallashaw about Geter’s unpredictability, stating that he wanted to find a way to make her “unavailable.”

“If I call her and she refuses, then I will find a way to make her unavailable, and then I can read her whole testimony,” Von Zamft said.

“You would want to do that?” Gallashaw responded.

“No, I don’t want to do it,” the prosecutor replied. “I’d rather she testified and did a good job. But can I count on it? No.”

For Wolfson, the conversation corroborated Geter’s testimony in which she stated that the prosecutor told her he would read out her testimony if she was dead. The judge also pointed out context she believed was worth considering; Gallashaw is a convicted murderer in a case that involves witness elimination.

“To be clear, this court does not believe that Mr. Von Zamft was sending a cryptic message to Mr. Gallashaw to eliminate Ms. Geter,” Wolfson said in the filing. “However, reasonable minds may reach a different conclusion based on the totality of the circumstances in this case.”

‘I don’t know who to trust.’

Geter connected with Von Zamft in 2000, when a Miami police detective investigating her brother’s murder told her Von Zamft wanted to speak with her. When she met the prosecutor, she said he played a recording of Smith.

She said she didn’t want anything to do with testifying — until Von Zamft told Geter that Smith wanted her dead.

“From the beginning, he was lying to me to get me to cooperate for him,” Geter told the Miami Herald.

According to Geter, around 2003, she and other state witnesses were taken to the Miami Police Department about five times a week. They were asked to decipher recordings because investigators couldn’t understand what was being said. They also shared information to line up the witnesses’ testimonies.

Geter learned about the prosecutor’s ominous conversation with Gallashaw two weeks ago. She said she has been in fear for her life due to threatening messages she has received.

“You cannot put a spin on what was said,” Geter told the Miami Herald. “Why would you tell him you don’t want me available? ...It’s unethical that this officer of the State Attorney’s Office would be conspiring with a known killer.”

Geter also said that Von Zampf asked her to contact Fail so that he would be pressured to withdraw his statement. The prosecutor, she alleges, threatened to charge her with witness tampering.

“Right now, I’m still nervous,” she said. “I don’t know who to trust.”

For Geter, Smith deserves a new trial because he never received one. She said she also doesn’t understand why the State Attorney’s Office hasn’t publicly commented on the dismissal.

“Let a jury of his peers either convict him or set him free...without getting witnesses together and telling them what they need to say…to get a conviction,” Geter said.

Deadly control of Miami’s drug trade

The murders for which Smith was convicted were part of the John Does’ war for control over Miami’s drug trade in the 1990s.

▪ Leon Hadley, who ran the Liberty City drug holes Smith’s gang was fighting to take over, was killed in a drive-by shooting after he threatened Smith and a colleague.

▪ John Doe “watchout” Jackie Pope stated in a deposition that a John Doe member shot a police officer at one of the drug holes. Pope’s body was later riddled by 16 bullets from John Doe “hit men,” according to a federal indictment.

▪ Though Cynthia Brown’s death was staged to look like an overdose, a coroner determined that the potential witness against Smith had been suffocated in a hotel room.

▪ Angel Wilson was killed when a car pulled up to her vehicle in Liberty City and she was shot.