President Donald Trump announces new naval expansion plan, and a mom arrested under a new super speeder law gets a reduced charge.
The White House announced plans Monday to build a new, large warship that President Donald Trump is calling a “Trump-class” battleship as part of a larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet,” according to people familiar with the plans.
Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who is now a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and familiar with the discussions, said the plan includes a new, large “surface combatant class” of ship and as many as 50 support ships.
The announcement comes just a month after the Navy scrapped its plans to build a new, small warship, citing growing delays and cost overruns, deciding instead to go with a modified version of a Coast Guard cutter that was being produced until recently.
A mother is now facing lesser charges following a super speeder arrest after State Attorney Monique Worrell acknowledged multiple layers of the case falling through the cracks.
Florida’s super speeder law went into effect in July and makes driving more than 50 miles per hour over the limit, or driving over 100 miles per hour, a criminal offense.
Worrell says her office has more than 200 active super-speeder cases. She also said that after trying these types of cases for a few months, she sees some challenges in prosecuting, and expects and hopes some adjustments will be made in the future.
Video from the Orange County Sheriff’s office shows deputies following a woman they say was going more than 100 miles per hour on Alafaya Trail earlier this year.
She was cited for super speeding and child neglect, as the deputy on scene said he saw an infant not strapped into a car seat in the back. The posted speed limit on the roadway was 45 miles per hour.
According to the state attorney’s office, the court ruled that late disclosure of radar calibration documentation was a violation and was excluded evidence. The state later amended the charge to complete a 12-hour aggressive driving course with an aggressive, careless driving infraction.
Within two weeks of the motion to compel the radar calibration by the defense, the prosecutor who was leading the case was transferred to another division. That’s where this case started to take what the state attorney described as an unfortunate turn.
“That prosecutor did not flag for the incoming prosecutor that there was this motion to compel filed, and there was this discovery issue that needed to be addressed,” Worrell said. “That prosecutor did not flag for the incoming prosecutor that this motion to compel was filed and had a discovery issue to be addressed.”
Worrell added that the prosecutor who took over the case was a new lawyer with a caseload of nearly 200. She said the new prosecutor did ask for a continuance to supply to the defense the day they went to court, but was denied.
“I am the state attorney,” Worrell said. “Every decision in this office rests with me, but it is important for people to understand that I don’t make every decision in this office.”
According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, when it came to this case, the state attorney’s office held onto a request for discovery for three months before asking the deputy for radar information.
OCSO officials said the deputy provided that information within a day.
Attorney Jeff Lotter is a former Florida Highway Patrol trooper and Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy. He defended the woman cited for super speeding on Alafaya in court, and said he has about a dozen other similar cases.
Lotter said that years ago paperwork for DUI cases did not come through properly, which caused problems for prosecutors. He says it’s a similar situation for super speeding.
“We are challenging the super speeder cases on the administrative side of what they are producing,” Lotter said. “I think government inefficiency right now is preventing that from being presented accurately.”
The Orange County Sheriff’s office reports they have made 136 arrests under the super speeder law, and have cited 14 others.
Not all super speeder cases ended like the one with the mom driving along Alafaya. Many are facing jail time and fines in the thousands of dollars.
Worrell said she has asked for law enforcement officers who make a super speeder arrests to go ahead and provide a radar calibration when they send the case over.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office officials said that was an unreasonable request in a statement.
“The truth is that we send hundreds, if not thousands, of cases to the state attorney’s office every year — a great number of those are never charged by the SAO or taken to trial,” the statement said. “It’s not reasonable to expect anyone to provide — proactively all the information an attorney may need for a trial that may never happen. That is simply passing the buck.”