Craig Williams-Democrat Candidate for PBC State Attorney

Williams is in a 3-way race for the Democrat Primary in the Palm Beach County State Attorney seat.

Episode Transcript

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

(00:03):
is on the race for Palm BeachCounty State Attorney. And there actually are
two primaries and an NPA. Nowthe NPA will not be on the ballot
until the fall. But you dohave two Republicans and two Democrats. And
we have or actually it's three Democrats, i should say, and we have

(00:25):
one of yes, and and that'sCraig Williams's voice you here, one of
the three Democrats on the ballot.Thanks, thanks for joining me, Thanks
for having me, Joel. Solet's get started by, you know,
sharing some info about yourself. We'llstart there. Well, I've been a
prosecutor since nineteen ninety three. Ihave tried more than five hundred jury trials,

(00:47):
more than any other prosecutor's ever tried, very successfully gotten justice for almost
every single victim. Unfortunately, mypassion for fighting for victims, trying to
get justice for people comes from twohorrible tragedies in my family. And when
I was thirteen, my brother waskilled. He was sixteen years old,
and he was killed in a horriblecar accident. He was a passenger in

(01:08):
a vehicle where his friend was drivingninety five miles an hour and hit a
telephone pole and he killed my brother. It happened on Mother's Day morning,
and then he died four days lateron my father's birthday. And it devastated
our family to bad numberies. Soparents couldn't take it anymore. Moved back
to Florida, or moved to Floridafrom New Jersey because they just they couldn't

(01:30):
face it anymore, so devastating.And then we didn't have a lot of
money, so I worked as akid. I was sixteen years old,
worked at a gas station in OaklandPark. Then I'm Broward and I was
closing up the gas station about nineo'clock at night and a guy came in
with an infant and robbed me atgunpoint, pulled me into the bathroom,

(01:52):
beat me over the head with afirearm, threatened to kill me. You
know, I guess he thought heleft me. I mean he left me
ut conscious because I pretended that Iwas unconscious. But luckily I was able
to get enough information getting a goodID from him, and the police were
able to catch him the next morning. He had to have a live lineup
to identify him, and a sixteenyear old kid had to go to trial

(02:14):
and testifying in the jury trial,and the jury, the jury found him
guilty and he was sentenced to fifteenyears in prison. And the way that
prosecutor treated me was kind of whatset in my future for wanting to do
what I do and where my passioncomes from. Okay, and you so
you, I don't think did youmention that you're with the State Attorney's office

(02:36):
currently. So I had been withthe State Attorney's offices nineteen ninety three except
for three years, and I'm currentlya chief assistant. So I supervised six
different felony units, forty five differentfelony prosecutors. And you know, I'm
in the court room every single daytrying to make sure that we run the
best state Attorney's office for our community, because if we're not doing a good

(02:59):
job and safety is suffering. Solet me ask you this, And you
know, most people do agree thatthe State Attorney's Offices in in you know,
decent shape, and a lot offolks praise uh outgoing State Attorney Dave
Ehrenberg, who is leaving on hisown accord, not uh not deciding to
run for what would it have beenhis fourth term or its fourth. Yeah,

(03:24):
yeah, but obviously if you know, if you are given the position
by the voters to head up theState Attorney's Office, me the first leader
in what over a decade of theState Attorney's Office, do you see things
that you'd like to change? Arethere? You know? Is there a
direction that you'd like to take itthat it's not going in currently? Absolutely?

(03:46):
So, I yeah, what youwould find if you knew, if
it was transparently knew all the numbers, the sellony units are doing much better
than the misdemeanor units and the specialtyof the specialty units. So I believe
that my leadership skills, the wayI support, the way I'm involved every
single day and helping make everybody dobetter work there would translate into the entire

(04:13):
office being much more efficient and muchmore productive and having better results for our
community. All Right, there issome talk from the folks supporting one of
your opponents in this Democrat primary,and I know you've addressed this in other
venues, But regarding some comments thatyou have made about the domestic violence unit,

(04:39):
which I guess is run by oneof your opponents here at the State
Attorney's Office, and you said thatonly thirty three percent of those arrested for
domestic violence are charged, meaning twoout of every three victims of domestic violence,
we do nothing to help and returningthose people to their abusers. Looking
at quotes and kind of encapsulating alittle bit there in my own words,

(05:01):
But I guess supporters of Alexia Cox, one of your opponents in this race,
are demanding an apology, So Iwanted to give you a chance to
address that. I would never apologizefor wanting to better for victims of crime.
Never. I pledge to everybody inPalmbe's County that I will do a
much better job with our victims ofdomestic violence and making sure that they get

(05:26):
justice and we end this cycle ofdomestic violence. Defendants are not going to
control how we prosecute cases, absolutelynot. Our police are doing a phenomenal
job gathering the evidence. We're gettingeverything on body Warren cameras, we're getting
nimal one calls, We're getting somuch more evidence than we used to get
in the past, and we alwaysfiled more charges than that when I was
in domestic violence. It is adisservice for our community, and she should

(05:50):
be apologizing to the victims of domesticviolence for not doing enough for them.
So what do you have to sayabout the fact that her supporters are you
know, a group is putting outyou know, saying that calling your comments
offensive quote unquote. How could itpossibly be offensive to say to victims that
I promise to do a better jobfor you. That's that's it. I

(06:11):
find it offensive that they say thatthat they don't think we should do a
better job for victims of domestic violence. I disagree. One yeah, taking
a different direction here. You know, we will often hear about plea deals,
and oftentimes the folks who are relatives, loved ones of victims of crimes

(06:32):
get upset when they hear about pleadeals. Some of the public outcry against
plea deals, you know, talkabout plea deals and and why it's something
that you just can't avoid. Well, I mean just unfortunately, the system
can never handle trying all the cases. It's just impossible. It can.
It's basically set up with enough courtroomsand enough personnel to be able to try

(06:59):
five percent of the cases. Ina smaller community, you could possibly try
ten percent of the cases. Butwe want to encourage people to accept responsibility
for their actions to move on toget justice, for people, to not
torture, because the criminal justiceism isnot a pleasant place for anybody to be.
So we want to encourage as muchas possible to get things through the
system with as much which as littlepain as possible on the participants, which

(07:24):
is our victims, Our victims familyare defendants of defendant's family and society.
We want to make sure that ourcommunity we get swift justice. You don't
get swift justice through leed deals.But let's talk about bleed deals. Because
that's why I've tried five hundred jurytrials more than anybody else, because you
know what, it's not acceptable toplease somebody out to ten years that murdered
somebody in cold blood. It's justnot acceptable. I see it happening all

(07:46):
the time. I would never dothat. I would never sign my name
to something like that. You killedsomeone in cold blood, you can go
to trial, let the jury decidewhat's going to happen on that. That
is a passion that either that personhas and they're willing to go when they're
in a fight for those victims andtreat them like family members, or you
don't and you're never around the office, and all you care about is we're

(08:07):
closing cases out so you don't haveto go into that court woroman fight.
I am a fighter, and Iand everybody in office respects me for being
a fighter, who's fair, who'sethical, who's honest, and does it
right every single time, whether someone'slooking or not. Yeah, there was
a case and when you say that, you talk about quote unquote cold blooded
burderers and that kind of thing backin nine I can't believe it's been this

(08:31):
long, but a guy who murderedseveral members of his family on Thanksgiving and
he ended up getting getting a pleadeal, which you know, send him
to prison for life. But Iknow that there was some you know,
cry out from relatives of the victimsin that case. You know, I

(08:52):
would would would you count a caselike that is something you wouldn't plead,
So that that was really sad.I was involved because I was a criminal
defense attorney at the time, andthe family actually reached out to me to
try to help them. But whathappened was I couldn't do any I couldn't
help them at all. So deathpenalty was the It was originally on the
table, and then what our stateattorney did behind the victims backs as he

(09:16):
went. He pulled the death penaltyoff the table, which means we should
say that was prior to Aaron Berg'stime. Correct, that was prior to
Dave Arenberg. You know, itwas the state attorneys who hired left the
office under because he was not doinga good job. And I mean,
honestly, we were the worst runstate attorney's office in the entire state of
Florida. So because they pulled thedeath penalty off the table, the maximum

(09:41):
punishment that mister Meritage could have receivedwas life in prison, and that's what
he pled to it was life inprison. So they took that from the
victims without even consulting with them andjust kind of shoved it down their throats.
You also have another we talked aboutone oppony, have another one.
This has nothing to do with you, but suggesting that maybe enough's not being

(10:01):
done regarding crimes against seniors and particularlyyou know with the scams that we hear
about. I know there is astatewide office, it's an agency working for
the state Attorney's Attorney General's office.I've spoken with them several times that handles
this. But do you agree thatthere's not enough being done? And if

(10:22):
so, what you know what morecan be done from the State Attorney's Office
in Palmage County. So, jol. The only thing we can do is
kind of what the sheriff is doingright now with educating people when it comes
to the State Attorney's office is alittle too late. They're already victimized.
You know. Our goal is tomake sure that the community is safer and
they're not victimized. But when thosecases come into the State Attorney's office and

(10:43):
we are able to prove those cases, we're filing charges and we're getting good
senses on those cases. So whatyou have you have somebody twisting details around
and who's not an insider and whodoesn't know what's going on. So I
completely disagree. Are there comes outthere that we can't help because the police
can't gather enough evidence to show whoget it or catch the person? Yeah,

(11:05):
that happens, unfortunately, but Ican't. If the police can't bring
us a viable case with a suspect, we can't prosecute that. So but
if any case we get for elderlyvictims, it's one of those things.
That's a passion of mine. Peoplethat are vulnerable, are kids that are
being molested, are victims of violence, our elderly who when they steal money

(11:28):
from the elderly, they can't makeit back up again. They destroyed.
You might as well hit them overthe head with a hammer and destroy their
life. That's what you did.You ruin the rest of their entire life
because they can no longer live theway that they plan to live. Those
things are things that I take deepin my heart, and I will fight
for those people every since. IfI have to do it myself, I
will go into court and fight forthose people myself. Yeah. And one

(11:50):
of the things I've spoken with thefolks from Seniors Versus Crime that's the name
of the agency works for the StateAttorney General's office. Unfortunately, is oftentimes
they don't get reported at all becausepeople are embarrassed, the victims, they're
embarrassed or they don't even realize thatthey've been victimized. Solutely. All right,

(12:13):
Well, so final question. Youknow again, we've got three candidates
just just in the Democrat primary.Of course, as I mentioned, there's
another two in a Republican primary.You've got an NPA as well. Why
should you ultimately be the pick?Well, you know who knows best about
what's going on in the State Attorney'soffice, all of our law enforcement officers

(12:35):
in Palm Beach County, and thereare over five thousand members that are deputies,
police, and correctional officers through thePBA, and they are enthusiastically supporting
me, and not only supporting me, they're telling everybody you cannot vote for
the other people because they are progressiveand they will make our community less safe.
There is a massive difference between theway I treat people, the way

(12:56):
I fight for victims of crime,and the way I do my job at
that office than anybody else has everdone it. And I am by far
the most qualified and the most passionateand the best person for the job.
And I collaborate with everybody I workwith, the public defenders, the defense
far that the police, anybody that'sinvolved in the criminal justice system to make

(13:16):
that place run better every single day, so it's better for our entire community.
All right, Well, we appreciateyou taking the time to speak with
the Democrat voters in Palm Beach County. This is Palm Beach County state attorney
candidate Craig Williams on wjno dot com