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She just keeps on keeping on
© St. Petersburg Times Say this about Julianne Holt: She's a survivor. She's midway through the third investigation of her nine-year career as Hillsborough County's Public Defender. As usual, she's fighting. If the past is any predictor, she'll win, but leave a trail of doubts behind her. On Tuesday, the state ethics commission said probable cause existed to believe Holt had violated ethics law on five occasions, for using employees like errand boys on the public's time. The commission found there is evidence employees helped on her re-election campaign, assisted her with paperwork for classes she taught as a sideline, made her bank deposits, took her car to the shop and wrote up some of her personal correspondence. Holt admitted that the employees did the work. But she always had an explanation that neatly took her out of the equation. Either the workers were super-duper eager volunteers or they did the work on the public's time without her knowledge, she said. You may believe her. I don't. I keep hearing echoes of excuses past. In 1996, a special grand jury was put together as the result of an ethics inquiry the year before that raised the possibility of criminal conduct. Holt had, for instance, signed the name of one of her lawyers on a check meant for him and cashed it. Most of the ethics charges, including the one regarding the check, were tossed out, and the grand jury filed no criminal charges. Instead, the grand jury drew some conclusions about Holt's general conduct and attitude. The jury concluded that Holt suffered from "a continuing inability to see, much less admit, to the use of poor judgment." You could apply those same words to Holt's conduct as laid out in this latest report by the ethics commission. But it is only a report. The commission is a notoriously weak agency, and the process to come gives Holt several chances to whack away at the evidence. Next will come a hearing before an administrative law judge. The judge will draw his own conclusions about the five charges and then will pass those conclusions back to the ethics commission. The commission will then decide whether to accept his findings. But even that is tentative. The commission's final decision is only a recommendation, which it will pass on to the governor, who has the last word. Even then, if Holt runs out of luck and the governor punishes her, she can appeal through the courts. I acknowledge a particular interest here. The first ethics inquiry into Holt's conduct was spurred by a 1995 investigation conducted by myself and a colleague, Chuck Murphy. During the period of our work, Holt had a file put together on me, some employees later said. She had them tail me on occasion. She has of course denied this. Her lawyer now, former federal prosecutor Greg Kehoe, has said the latest charges are minor, hardly worth sneezing at it. But it's not the details that are so disturbing. It's the pattern they create. They show a pattern of conduct that can be summed up in a word: arrogance. Holt's convenience and ambition -- she has tried to become a judge, and toyed with the idea of running for state attorney -- keep getting in the way of her public duty. This is not what you want in your elected officials. But Holt seems here to stay. Term limits don't apply to the public defender's job. It is a thankless position, largely invisible, not highly prized by the politically minded. Holt doesn't have a job so much as she has a sinecure, as long as the ethics commission fails to stop her, or at least slow her down. -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone John Romano From the Times Metro desk |
