Miami gangster’s life could be spared after prosecutor misconduct undermines murder case

Florida inmate Corey Smith, a notorious gangster from Liberty City, could have his life spared after prosecutorial misconduct undermined the state’s case against him.

Prosecutors with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday morning in court that their office is formally considering whether to waive the death penalty in Smith’s case — the first public acknowledgment that they might drop their effort to see the gang leader put to death for murder.

“At this point, we are submitting documents to our death penalty committee,” prosecutor Rebecca DiMeglio told the judge Tuesday morning, referencing the office’s formal process for making death penalty decisions.

A court hearing was set for Nov. 13 to revisit the case.

“We’ve sent a request asking the state to waive the death penalty,” defense attorney Allison Miller told Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson, “and we hope they do so.”

At one time, Smith appeared destined for execution, having been sentenced to death in 2005 in a drugs-and-murders case as the alleged leader of the ruthless John Does gang in the 1990s. Smith was convicted in the murders of Leon Hadley, Jackie Pope, Cynthia Brown and Angel Wilson, and the manslaughter deaths of Melvin Lipscomb and Marlon Beneby.

He was accused of ordering most of the deaths, and participating personally in the drive-by shooting of Hadley, according to court documents. He received multiple sentences, including death for the murders of Brown and Wilson.

Changes in Florida’s death penalty in recent years, however, dictated that he receive a new sentencing trial.

Smith still was facing the death penalty when in March, Judge Wolfson removed the prosecutors from his case , a rare move amid damning evidence of witness tampering and improprieties. Prosecutor Michael Von Zamft, a senior employee in State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s office, retired that day. His co-prosecutor, Stephen Mitchell, who was accused of defending Von Zamft too vigorously given the accusations, still works for the office.

In court Tuesday, a phalanx of top chiefs from the Miami Dade State Attorney’s Office filed in, along with the case’s new prosecutors, DiMeglio and Justin Funck.

Were they to re-try Smith to reimpose a death penalty, they’d be virtually starting over with a complex and long-running case filling some 161 boxes of materials. Adding to the difficulty, Smith’s new prosecutors are not allowed to communicate with the prosecutors who were removed.

They’d also be challenged in court with the relatively fresh accusations that 20 years ago, the state’s witnesses were brought together almost daily to coordinate testimony against Smith, and were given food and cigars. One witness allegedly was allowed sexual contact. At the time, the case was under the leadership of then-prosecutor Bronwyn Miller, now an appellate judge. Miller appeared as a witness in case, replying “no,” when asked if she witnessed anyone drinking alcohol or having sex.

Recorded jail calls also captured prosecutor Von Zamft, who was handling the resentencing case, admitting he tried to get witnesses together on the jail courtyard with a longtime informant. The informant, William “Little Bill” Brown, had a relationship with Von Zamft and provided information for him from inside the jail, the Miami Herald previously reported.

Von Zamft also was captured on a recorded jail line discussing whether to make a recalcitrant witness “unavailable.” Though the word is a legal term that could mean the witness had an authorized excuse from testifying, Judge Wolfson said it also could be viewed as a veiled threat on the witness’s life.

If the death penalty is waived, Smith still could spend the rest of his life in prison.

But that’s not what his attorneys aim for. They filed motions to vacate his conviction and sentence. Miller said she’s hoping for a negotiated plea deal with a reduced sentence, much like the recent case of Taji Pearson , whose life sentence was reduced in July to 15 years.

Pearson, the driver in a botched gang shooting that took the life of teen girl, wasn’t involved with Smith’s gang, but he had the same two prosecutors accused of misconduct in the Smith case: Von Zamft and Mitchell. Like Smith, Pearson’s case was also taken over by DiMeglio and Funck.

Smith also has a federal drugs and firearms sentence hanging over him that would keep him in prison until 2051, a State Attorney’s Office spokesman said. He’d be almost 80 years old.