Alexcia Cox-Democrat Candidate for PBC State Attorney

Cox faces two opponents in the race for Palm Beach County State Attorney.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, Joel, Malcolm Ford wjn O dot com. My election spotlight

(00:04):
is on the rare Palm Beach CountyState Attorney race. This is one where
the current state attorney, Dave Arenberg, said he's not running again, and
so that leaves three candidates vying forthis race. As far as on the
Democrat side, there will also bea race in November regardless of what happens

(00:25):
with this, because you have wellyou have two Republicans who are running in
a Republican primary, so you'll haveone Democrat, one Republican and an NPA
in November. So this is avery busy race, is what I'm getting
at. And one of our threecandidates on the Democrat side, Alexia Cox,
joining us. Now, thank you. I almost confuse myself. Thank
you for joining me, Hi,Joel, thank you for having me.

(00:48):
I'm so happy to be here andI appreciate the opportunity to introduce myself to
your listeners. Awesome. So yeah, six candidates in total, three in
this primary too, in the otherand then the NPA. I'm just gonna
I mean, and you can probablyonly answer for yourself, Well, why
do you feel this is such apopular race? Great? Question. I

(01:12):
think it's important to the community.It's important to members of the state Attorney's
office who the next state attorney isgoing to be. So I know there
are a lot of people who areinterested in this position, a lot of
eyes on this race because of themagnitude of the position. You know,
I always talk about the power ofthe prosecutor's pen because, unlike many other

(01:34):
jobs, you sign your name todocuments, you know, and there may
not necessarily be life changing ripple effectthat results in that. So I think
it's so important for our entire community, our business community. Everyone has an
interest in who our next date attorneyis going to be, and so I
think this is really important and that'swhy so many people are interested in this

(01:56):
race. All right, let's getsome information on you for you know,
folks, you may be a newname for them. First of all,
have you run for office before?Obviously you're an attorney. But okay,
all right, so tell us tellus about yourself. Yeah, so I've
never run for public office. Iam. I'm born and raised here in
Palm Beach County, So this ishome for me, and that's why I

(02:19):
have great, great pride and notonly working in the office, but also
running to lead the office in aplace that I've always called home. I
grew up here. I went offto a University of Central Florida for undergrad
and I graduated with honors. Iwent off to the Florida State University College
of Law, I graduated with honors, and I came back to Palm Beach

(02:43):
County, my home, and beganmy career in public service. So a
couple of days after taking the barexam, i was right back here in
Pombeach County working at the State Attorney'sOffice, my first real job, and
the domestic violence unit. And mycareer has you know, it started from
you know, mister baby prosecutor,and now I'm serving on the executive leadership
team of a state Attorney, DaveEhrenberg, as his deputy chief Assistant State

(03:07):
Attorney. I've been a prosecutor nowfor sixteen and a half years, I
guess with my eighteen year legal career, and I'm just super excited about my
journey through the office and what I'vebeen able to give to the community.
I've been a single mom. Iraised my son he's an adult now,
but raised him through our public schoolshere. He graduated from my alma mater,

(03:27):
which is Sun Coast Community High School. And so I've just had a
pleasure of not only being a voicefor victims of crime, but also being
a community leader, a community advocate. I've served nonprofit boards, I've served
leadership roles a Florida in our Floridabar a Palmmee County bar. So for
me, it's about it's about leadership, it's about service and seeking justice.

(03:51):
I think that's how I would describemyself. I'm going to ask you this
question, are you are are youhappy with the way that the State Attorney's
Office obviously being a part of it, but that the State Attorney's Office is
currently operating, And if so,how important do you feel it is,
you know, to keep it onthe same path, or at least a

(04:11):
similar path. Well, I'm veryproud of the work we've been able to
accomplish under State Attorney Dave Aaron Birkthree terms. Now, I was in
leadership before State Attorney Arenberg arrived,and I think that makes me the person
who's the person with the most prosecutorialleadership experience in the race. When he
came, I was already the chiefof our domestic violence unit, and he

(04:32):
kept me in that role and thenhe elevated me to his executive leadership team.
I think we've been doing, youknow, great work. We've had
a lot of challenges of course asa state attorney's offices around the state in
terms of recruitment and retention, butall in all, I think we've done
a great job with the resources thatwe have. I do believe that with

(04:53):
new leadership comes from perspectives, fromthe visions, new priorities. And I
think there are some initial and thingsthat I want to do because they either
are important to me or I feelthat there is maybe a need or a
gap that we can fill. Butall in all, I think that we
have been doing a good job andI'm looking forward to elevating our service to

(05:14):
the community. I'm looking forward tobuilding upon the great work that we have
done in the community and on behalfof our community. Okay, did you
mention you know, oftentimes when we'lltalk to folks that are you know,
running, we have the one judicialrace, and I've talked to we featured
that actually today as we as wespeak here July eleventh, on the air,

(05:40):
when we when we interview attorneys foryou know, for judicial races,
they often will talk about how muchtime they spent in the courtroom. You
know, is that something that you'dlike to talk about. Yeah, sure,
you know. I have had aphenomenal trial career. Like I said,
I've moved up. I've been inthe rank every level of the office.

(06:02):
You can think of a couple ofstate attorneys ago, when I was
in the office, one of misterEhrenberg's predecessors tapped me to launch the felony
section of our domestic violence unit becausewe didn't have a felony division, and
so I've been able to lead thatunit and brought in the amount of attorneys

(06:23):
that we've had and staff there.I've tried tons of domestic violence related,
dating violence related cases. I've triedtwo of the most high profile cases under
State Attorney Dave Arenberg leadership. AndI've enjoyed seeking justice for families, for
victims of homicides, for victims ofdomestic and dating violence, elder crimes.

(06:45):
I've done child of these cases,robberies, and I've been successful. I've
had a successful career as a prosecutor, so I think it's important to bring
that experience as a prosecutor, atrial lawyer, and I'm a great trial
lawyer. I in my cases,I take a lot of pride in my
work, and no one is goingto work harder than I will. But
this position also requires a level ofleadership, executive level leadership and vision that

(07:12):
I possess, because you have tohave both if you are going to be
the leader, the chief law enforcementofficer in our in our great county.
What would you tell somebody that maybecalls the question when a when a deal
is cut with you know, andoftentimes that does come, I believe from
both sides, so the prosecutors obviouslyhave to agree. Let's say somebody is

(07:36):
charged with murder or maybe not murderprobably a bad example, but with some
you know, some crime that hurtssomebody in some way, whether it was
financially or physically, and you havethe state attorney's office offering, you know,
plea deals. You know, wewe we we know about that with

(07:57):
the uh, the so called boyin the box case, the and the
mom ended up. You know,they did a plea deal, so no
jail time for her, the husband'sdoing five years. What would you say
to somebody that feels like that's notfair that you know, they people do
the crime, they should do thetime, so to speak, I would
ask them to trust us because there'sa lot of information that may not necessarily

(08:20):
get to the public. You know, when you are making a plea deal,
what the public doesn't always understand isthat sometimes that's one of the toughest
decisions you have to make in theinterest of justice, in the interest sometimes
of getting the true perpetrator, orin the interest of protecting a victim.
In that case, it was achild victim. You know. You know,

(08:41):
we don't We're not always out frontstating what all of those reasons are,
but generally it's in the best interestof justice, in the best interests
of the case. And you know, I know that that may not always
be what the public feels is thebest outcome, but I know that for

(09:01):
personally, I've had to make someof those really tough decisions, and I
usually make them with input from thefamily or the victim, in confultation with
members of my office who I trust, who know that that we're about doing
the right thing and protecting our community. You know, but it is a
tough, a tough decision to makeand sometimes it comes with great, great,

(09:26):
great questions and a lot of communityquestions. And I think that we
often times, you know, wedo it, but we we will do
it in the best interests of justiceand in the best interests of our victims
or families who are impacted by thecrime. All Right, and then I'm
gonna ask you this question. Thereare three candidates running in this race.

(09:46):
What makes Selexia Cox the best optionfor voters? I love that question.
Thank you so for me. AsI mentioned, this is a This is
a role just about being able totry cases and being a good prosecutor,
of being a good attorney. Thisis a case about This is a role

(10:07):
about leadership and community. And Ithink you want to have someone who is
passionate and has the vision. Andso for me, this is home.
You know, this is a placewhere my parents live, my aunt,
who is one hundred and four yearsold now lives here. So there's no
one in the race who wants tokeep Palm Beach Counties neighborhoods and roads and

(10:31):
schools safer than I do. Becausemost of the people that I love in
the world live here. So Iwant to make sure Pombeach County continues to
stay a safe place. And it'spersonal for me because I'm attached to this
Palmbeach County community. In addition,I have demonstrated leadership and every level of

(10:52):
the office. Leadership in the community, volunteerism and service is what is at
my core. So this is notabout title or power or ego or any
of those things. It's about makingsure that justice is done right in Palm
Beach County and that we are keepingour community safe. In addition, I

(11:13):
know that I am the person whowill make sure that we have strengthened relationships
with law enforcement. I'm back bythe police, I'm back by a fire.
I will also make sure that Isupport our seniors in this community by
creating our elder Crimes Unit that's goingto have two parts to it. One

(11:33):
is prosecutorial, but also education.I want to have a community education component
tied to that. In addition,I've been the only candidate to speak out
strongly and pledging to establish a hatecrimes unit that will also be multipurpose in
that we're going to hopefully have ourHate Crimes Passforce put in place in Palm

(11:54):
Beach County to mirror what I've seenin Broward County as well as Miami Dade
County, and also prosecuting those hatecrimes, but educating you know, our
community, o our college students,our people in the community who don't necessarily
know what hate crimes are and ifthey should report report things that may happen
in their community. So I havetaken on some of the worst of the

(12:16):
worst criminals in our in our community, and I'm going to continue to fight
hard and make sure that we seejustice and people are held accountable if they
do things that infringe upon the rightsor or hurt or harm people who live
in our in our communities. Iknow that this is a partisan race,

(12:37):
but I think the racist partisan.But the work is it, you know.
And I'm proud to say that Ihave a coalition of elected officials who
support me that is bipartisan. AndI'm happy to have several mayors, vice
mayors, dozens of elected officials fromfederal, state, and local leaders who
support my campaign and even more sothan that, community leaders who are behind

(12:58):
me, who support me, whowant to see me be the next state
attorney in Palm Beach County, youknow, And This is not about history,
although I will make history when i'melected. But this is about making
an impact and making a strong,strong difference in the community that I love.
So I think that's what makes methe best candidate, and I look

(13:20):
forward to becoming the next state attorneyhere in Palm Beach County. All Right,
well, again, I appreciate youjoining us talk to the voters of
Palm Beach County again. Palm BeachCounty State Attorney race candidate Alexia Cox on
wj ando dot com