Federal prosecutors in Florida are trying to keep a serial child molester behind bars in California for crimes George Joseph England allegedly committed in Palm Beach County.

England, now 65, is accused of buying then-five-year-old Jackie Zudis from her mother in Vietnam in the early 1970s. He claimed her as his adopted daughter and kept her as a sex slave for more than a decade, authorities say.

England sexually assaulted three of her young friends, skipped out of sentencing in California and lived for years in Florida — including Palm Beach County — using the fake name of a dead baby.

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Denise Amber Lee’s six-minute 911 call that helped convict her killer is among the most notorious examples of 911 calls gone wrong, the calls that are now in House Speaker Larry Cretul’s crosshairs as he tries to create a public records exemptions for them.

Her husband Nathan Lee sent an e-mail to the sponsor of Cretul’s bill, House Government Accountability Policy Council Chairman Rob Schenk, pleading with the committee to shoot down the measure that would make 911 call recordings secret except for transcripts that could be available after 60 days. Lee also asked that his message be read at Schenk’s committee hearing the bill (PCB GAP 10-03) before it was voted on this morning.

Schenk made no reference to Lee’s message and did not read it before the measure passed by an 8-5 vote. And Cretul, who used a procedural maneuver to ensure the bill passed, never read it at all. He said he received it last night. Public records show that Cretul, his spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin and Schenk received it around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

“I haven’t read the e-mail. I’m sure that he makes some excellent points,” Cretul, R-Ocala, said shortly before the House began session at 1 p.m.

Nathan Lee and his parents are pushing a separate 911 bill that would require uniform training standards for 911 dispatchers throughout the state. His wife was killed despite five 911 calls made in two counties, including one from a witness whose call was ignored.

Lee’s e-mail uses the botched handling of the eyewitness’ emergency call made on the day his wife was killed in 2008 to demonstrate why the calls should be available to the public.

“She provided the exact location of this event and even though there were, by all accounts, 4 police cars within a mile of this call, it was never dispatched. This call was, obviously, grossly mishandled and would have resulted in the saving of Denise’s life. Two days after this call, she was found in a grave, naked and with a single gunshot wound to the head. This call was hidden from the public and myself. And even hidden from the police department who was actively investigating the case and searching for my wife for two days. The subsequent internal affairs investigation shows the communication center and agency who took this crucial call were immediately aware that the call was about Denise. The call was suppressed. Had the eyewitness not contacted the North Port Police Department we may never have known about her call. And the prosecution would have lost the last eyewitness to see my wife alive,” Lee wrote.

Cretul said he supports the training and certification bill.

“But my whole interest in this issue has been watching what it also does to families and what it does to people that call in. They become suddenly out there for all the world to see,” Cretul said in an interview. “This is a very tough, very difficult issue. Very sensitive in all respects.”

Read the entire text of Nathan Lee’s message after the jump.
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A bill that’s one of House Speaker Larry Cretul’s priorities that would make 911 call tapes secret is on the fast-track in his chamber but lacks a Senate sponsor.

Cretul is pushing the measure on behalf of Florida Farm Bureau President John Hoblick, whose 16-year-old son died from a lethal combination of alcohol and illegal prescription drugs. Hoblick, out of town when his son Jake died, heard his older son John’s 911 call on the news.

House staff and the bill sponsor Rep. Rob Schenk, R-Spring Hill, kept the Speaker’s blessing of the bill hush-hush until this week when Cretul told a St. Petersburg Times reporter that Hoblick asked him to do something about the 911 calls.

Cretul used a seldom-used procedural maneuver today to guarantee that the measure (PCB GAP 10-03) passed. He temporarily assigned one of his lieutenants, House Speaker Pro Tem Ron Reagan, R-Bradenton, to the committee. Cretul didn’t need the insurance, however; the Government Policy Accountability Council approved it with an 8-5 vote.

Despite the Speaker’s clout in the House, the bill lacks a Senate sponsor.

Sen. Garrett Richter had originally agreed to run a companion for Schenk. But an open government shell bill he had sponsored that could have been used for Schenk’s bill was designated to be heard in the Banking and Insurance Committee, which has nothing to do with the 911 calls, he said. Richter backed off the bill even before controversy surrounding it - some victims and First Amendment lawyers staunchly oppose it - began this week. The Naples Republican said he won’t sponsor the measure.

A controversial measure making 911 call tapes secret passed its first test this morning over the objections of Democrats and civil rights advocates.

The measure (PCB GAP 10-3) is the brainchild of House Speaker Larry Cretul and appears on the fast-track in his chamber although Senate support appears limited.

The purpose of the bill is to spare victims of tragedies from reliving their traumas when frantic 911 calls are repeatedly broadcast on television or blogs, argued bill sponsor Rep. Rob Schenk, chairman of the Govermental Affairs Policy Committee that passed the bill with an 8-5 vote this morning.

The tapes would only be available to those who make the calls but others would have to go to court to get them. Transcripts of the tapes would be available after 60 days.

But Rep. Rick Kriseman, a St. Petersburg Democrat, objected that the transcripts are not available to the victims of the 911 calls unless they made the calls themselves.

Kriseman, a lawyer, also said automobile manufacturer Toyota may not have responded to quickly to runaway cars without the 911 tapes.

“Had it not been for the recording, the pressure that’s now being put on Toyota would not have happened. Because it was through that recording that we learned about the problem with the gas pedals and all the other associated problems. That’s a protection that we’re losing by putting this in place,” Kriseman said.

But Schenk argued that the bill is necessary to protect victims.

“It’s not about Tiger Woods and what did or did not happen on Thanksgiving with him. It’s not about any other celebrity. It is simply about when someone makes a 911 call they are generally in one of the most vulnerable states they will ever be in in their life. There is a tragedy. There is an emergency. There is something traumatic happening at that very moment. I’ll tell you just from personal experience I’ve had to make a 911 call. The events that happened during that time I will never forget. Quite frankly, I would not want to relieve that over and over again watching on TV or reading about it in the media,” Schenk said.

“That’s what this bill is about. It’s not about any celebrity. It’s not about any sensational news story you read about. It is purely about taking into consideration victims who make a 911 call, guarding them from the fact that reliving that event over and over again that was already traumatic to them.”

Schenk later refused to elaborate on the nature of his 911 call.

After taking billions of dollars in federal economic stimulus money to balance the state budget last year, Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul along with other GOP lawmakers are demanding that the federal government balance its budget to put an end to the escalating federal deficit now surpassing $12 trillion.

“Unless something is done with Washington’s irresponsible fiscal behavior, Florida’s economy will drown in debt,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said at a press conference this morning.

Atwater and his cadre want the feds to balance the nation’s budget as Florida lawmakers are constitutionally required to do in the Sunshine State.

But that didn’t stop the legislature under Atwater and Cretul from accepting at least $12 billion in federal stimulus money - more than $3 billion used to balance this year’s Florida budget and nearly another $6 billion plugged into next year’s. That money helped add to the nation’s rising debt.

“It’s a gaping inconsistency to take that money happily to fill giant holes in our budget and then turn around and criticize the very people who gave you the cash,” said Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is sponsoring a joint resolution that, if passed by two-thirds of the Florida legislature, would have the state joining 19 other states asking Congress to convene an amendments convention to propose a constitutional amendment requiring the balanced budget and limit federal lawmakers’ ability to pass mandated spending down to the states.

But Florida lawmakers have done the same thing to local governments over the past decade, forcing them to take up a large share of education spending by passing down mandates and making counties pick up the tab for other items.

Congress would have to call the amendments convention if 34 states make the request. Passage of the constitutional amendment would require ratification by three-fourths, or 38, of the states.

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct wrapped up its business this morning in the wake of former House Speaker Ray Sansom’s resignation last night.

Committee Chairman Bill Galvano:

“As a result of Speaker Sansom’s resignation as a member of the Florida House, further action by this committee is rendered moot. We’re without authority to fulfill the charge of this select committee,” Galvano, R-Bradenton, said.

A race for an open Panhandle state Senate seat may stymie success of a jobs package.

State Rep. Dave Murzin, House Economic Development and Community Affairs committee chairman, took a swipe at the Senate’s jobs package sponsored by Sen. Don Gaetz.

Murzin, a Panhandle Republican who is running for a Senate seat neighboring Gaetz’s district, was asked about the Gaetz proposal at an Associated Industries of Florida event in Tallahassee yesterday.

“It’s a great package. If I had a $150 million it might be some good ideas. But quite frankly I don’t have $150 million. I think I stopped counting at about $150 million,” Murzin, R-Pensacola, told the crowd of business lobbyists.

Gaetz’ bill includes a $1,000 tax break for businesses that hire an out of work Floridian and a variety of other corporate tax breaks or incentives to induce them to put the unemployed back on the job and to get them off Medicaid and other state benefits.

Murzin said his package will be more realistic.

“So yeah, we’ll take a look at some stuff but quite frankly we’ll roll out a jobs package, an economic incentives package, an economy package that actually works, doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money because …an economic package that Floridians can afford,” Murzin said. “I’m not really into it for the is still trying to figure out exactly how much it will cost and how much it could save).headlines. I’m actually into it to put Floridians back to work.”

Gaetz, who is backing Murzin’s opponent Rep. Greg Evers in the Senate race, expressed tongue-in-cheek surprise at Murzin’s inability to come up with the money to pay for the package. (Gaetz says his staff

“Well, Rep. Murzin is welcome to his opinions. I wish him well this session. And in his future. I wish him well in everything except his aspirations to be a senator. In all other cases I wish him well,” Gaetz, R-Destin, said.

A bipartisan House panel rejected Gov. Charlie Crist’s budget proposals, telling his budget chief the governor’s plan was as sketchy as building a household budget on winning the Lottery.

“There’s nothing here that I can use,” House health care budget chief Denise Grimsley, R-Lake Placid, told Jerry McDaniel, Crist’s budget guru.

Democrats and Republicans alike peppered McDaniel about the assumptions built into Crist’s $69.2 billion budget, including $1.1 billion in Medicaid funding that Congress has not yet approved, $443 million for education spending in a gambling compact that the legislature last year rejected, $300 million in local property taxes that 24 counties have not yet levied, and the absence of $350 million to comply with constitutional class size requirements based on a measure that has not even gone on the ballot yet.

“The validity of any decision-making process is always based on the assumptions you make,” said Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, chairman of the House transportation committee.

Crist’s assumptions are too iffy, Glorioso said.

“I can’t live with that. If I was doing this budget for myself with these assumptions I would be making a vast mistake. We need a better product soon. What if these things don’t come in? You always plan on a worst scenario…It’s always easier to add back into a budget than it is to come back six months out and do another cut. I’d like to see another proposal without all these basic assumptions in here,” he said.

McDaniel said the governor might offer a revised budget a week or two before the end of session if there was no chance a compact was going to pass. But that didn’t placate House budget chief David Rivera.

“I will tell you that as far as this committee is concerned, we need a budget. We have to work on a budget. I’m disappointed that we can’t start on that budget process together because our assumptions are so far apart,” Rivera, R-Miami, told McDaniel. “I hope that we will have other recommendations before the end of session thinking that it’s always better late than never. But this committee in the House of Representatives doesn’t have the luxury of waiting.”

First, the good news: Florida’s economic woes have hit bottom, the legislature’s chief economist Amy Baker told the Senate yesterday.

Now, the bad news: The state’s unemployment rate is expected to climb to 12 percent as early as Friday when the most recent job numbers are released, Baker said.

And more bad news for lawmakers as they struggle to craft a budget with up to $3.3 billion - about 4 percent - less than they had for this year’s $66.5 billion spending plan.

Although the national recession is over, Florida’s not going to show an economic recovery for at least another year, Baker and University of Florida economist David Denslow told the Ways and Means Committee, which about 30 of the 40-member chamber attended after Senate President Jeff Atwater asked them to sit in.

“We think we’ve hit bottom and we’re going to hover around the bottom for a wile before we start picking up,” Baker said.

The economy will start picking up next spring, she said, but even with normal growth rates, the recovery is coming off a very low base level so the turn-around will be very slow.

It will be three years “before you’re going to be out of the hole on a lot of measures,” Baker said.

Read the story here.

On the other side of the fourth floor rotunda, House Democrats wrote a letter to GOP leaders saying they don’t like their approach in determining what the state’s critical needs are.

They want to look not only at expenditures but at revenues as well. (Translation: higher taxes?)

But that’s not likely to happen on the Senate side.

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, told his members yesterday he “won’t extract another dollar” from Floridians.

Former Florida Christian Coalition leader Dennis Baxley confirmed he is running for re-election to the state House.

Baxley, a conservative Republican from Ocala, served in the state House from 2000-2008 and as the executive director of the Christian Coalition until May.

The funeral director raised eyebrows prior to the presidential election when he told The Miami Herald how he and other Christians perceived then-candidate Barack Obama: “He’s pretty scary to us.”

Baxley is running for his old District 24 seat because incumbent Rep. Kurt Kelly has jumped into the race against incumbent U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a liberal Democrat who defeated a four-term incumbent Republican in his election to Congress last year.

Grayson catapulted to national fame with his tongue-in-cheek characterization of the GOP health care reform as “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.”

Republicans are hoping to win Grayson’s seat back and the race for Congressional District 8 seat is likely to be one of the most closely watched in 2010.

“It’s a big challenge. Congressman Grayson’s become very visible and very positionable. I’m very proud that Kurt’s willing to take on that challenge to try to win that seat back for the Republicans,” Baxley said in a telephone interview this afternoon. “If he can go and accomplish something that difficult I ought to go back to work and try to help our economy again.”

Baxley said his main priority will be job creation to help the state’s out-of-work residents like the 18,000 in his district.

“We really need a primary focus on making an economic climate change for Florida,” he said.

State Sen. Dan Gelber and attorney general candidate nailed down another big-name Democratic endorsement, this time from Buddy McKay, who served as lieutenant governor under the late Gov. Lawton Chiles and briefly served as governor after Chiles’ death.

Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat and former House member, is trying to trade up for the Cabinet post just a year after he won election to the Senate.

He and colleague Dave Aronberg, a Democratic senator from Greenacres, are in a battle-of-the-endorsements.

Post On Politics had erroneously reported that the sheriffs were split on the candidates.

They are not.

Aronberg has the support of 10 Democratic sheriffs, including Palm Beach County’s own law enforcement rock star Ric Bradshaw.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, former state education commissioner Betty Castor and former U.S. Rep. Jim Davis have all thrown their support behind Gelber.

Republicans have lined up Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and Holly Benson, a former House member who also served as secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, in a GOP primary race that’s been virtually silent compared to the Aronberg/Gelber contest.

They’re all vying to replace Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor in a primary against another senator - Paula Dockery.

Gelber’s latest political aspiration has opened up the door for yet another former senator, Gwen Margolis, to return to the chamber.

Margolis, a former Senate President, left office before being termed out to make room for Gelber. If she wins, it would be the Miami Beach-area Democrat’s second return trip to the Senate. After serving in the state House, she switched to the Senate from 1981-1992 before making a losing bid for Congress. Margolis was reelected to the Senate in 2002.

Lawmakers are preparing to start a 10-day session on rail issues that in part could keep Tri-Rail on track.

The 49-page bill legislators will consider includes an extra $13 million to $15 million a year for Tri-Rail that’s been operating at a deficit since its inception two decades ago.

That’s “probably as good as we could get right now,” said Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons, who is also chairman of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority that oversees Tri-Rail.

That’s a big deal for leaders in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties where Tri-Rail runs. Federal officials have threatened to ask the counties to give back more than $200 million if Tri-Rail service is cut back as officials there have threatened.

Tri-Rail is paid for by the state, rider fares and the three counties in which it runs - Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade.

But the commuter line used by 15,000 riders daily has operated in the red by about $15 million every year.

Leaders in the three counties say they don’t have the money to make up the deficit and state lawmakers have refused to grant them the $2 rental car surcharge (also known as a tax) they’ve sought to cover their losses.

Now, state lawmakers are willing to fork over $13 million to $15 million a year to keep Tri-Rail on track to prove to federal lawmakers that Florida is serious about commuter rail. That way, the state will have a better chance at getting some of the $8 billion in stimulus money for high-speed rail projects.

The money will come from gas taxes and other fuel fees and should qualify as a “dedicated funding source” federal officials are seeking, Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons said.

“I think we ended up in the middle in the sense that we didn’t get our funding source but then a reallocation of those dollars is probably as good as we could get right now,” Koons said.

House Speaker Larry Cretul’s offer to black lawmakers who will miss the first two days of the special session because of a conference they are attending is not a compromise, his spokeswoman Jill Chamberlain said.

And if there was any doubt, Cretul made it clear at a press conference this afternoon that the lawmakers should be in Tallahassee as they are constitutionally required.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, both at the local level and now for the past seven years at the state level.
This job comes with a lot of demands and a lot of requirements. And oftentimes some inconvenience, an inconvenience on both a personal level and a professional level,” Cretul, R-Ocala, said. “It’s just part of the job. Any time that you’re elected or have a role of responsibility you have to keep in focus just what the duties of the responsibility are…It is our job as being part of the Florida Legislature. It is our job not only constitutionally but personally to be sure that we don’t inconvenience and neglect what we’re here for.”

The black members are hosting the National Black Caucus of State Legislators’ annual conference in Ft. Lauderdale, an event that began today and lasts through Saturday. Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, is chairing the gala which was two years in the planning.

Cretul said he’s letting two members participate in a committee meeting tomorrow by telephone and will hold a briefing late Sunday or early Monday for any members who want to attend.

And he’ll allow them to file amendments on the floor.

But Cretul already had planned the briefing and would have allowed the floor amendments anyway, Chamberlain said, even before House Democrats began demanding that the session be delayed until Monday to accommodate the black caucus.

Cretul insisted time constraints determined that the session would have to begin tomorrow and end by next Friday.

House Speaker Larry Cretul offered a compromise of sorts with black lawmakers after refusing to delay the special session to accommodate a scheduling conflict.

The black members are hosting the National Black Caucus of State Legislators’ annual conference in Ft. Lauderdale, an event that began today. Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, is chairing the gala which was two years in the planning.
.
House Democrats asked Cretul repeatedly to postpone the session, which begins Thursday and lasts through next Friday, until the conference ends this weekend.

He turned them down saying that he had promised Senate President Jeff Atwater the House would send a bill over to the Senate by Monday afternoon.

Now, Cretul is having a briefing session for the black lawmakers - all but one of whom are Democrats - next week and will allow them to offer amendments to the bill on second and third reading.

“They weren’t backing down. We weren’t backing down. So this avoided a confrontation,” said Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, who is attending the conference.
But, he added: “We’re not happy with it.”

He said it was disrespectful of GOP legislative leaders to schedule the special session during the time when they knew the conference was taking place.

Cretul and Atwater have offered excused absences for black lawmakers who are at the event.

“We would be totally embarrassed, nationally, by not being here. We have people from the White House here, from Congress here, from all over the nation,” Gibbons said. “It would be like we invite them to dinner at our house and then we’re not going to be home.”

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, responsible for the state’s checkbook, is promoting her penny-pinching prowess by going paperless.

Sink, a Democrat who is running for governor, says she’s saved taxpayers at least $1 million this year with her “Going green, Saving green” campaign to reduce the amount of paper generated by her offices.

Just one portion of the tree-saving program saved 3.7 million sheets of paper by doing away with hard copies of financial data available on a secure web site.

That $22,000 savings is about 1,217 feet of paper - the equivalent of three-and-a-half Capitol buildings (345 feet high).

Sink announced the money-saving initiative at a press conference this morning and to demonstrate how deep their green is her office did not distribute press releases on paper but sent them only by e-mail.

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In another example of legislating by anecdote, House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands filed a bill to let nursing mothers off the hook for jury duty.

Sands filed the bill (HB 79) after hearing from a breast-feeding constituent who wasn’t allowed to bring her baby along to jury duty.

Emily Schmitt sent the Weston Democrat a lengthy e-mail describing her tale of woe after showing up for jury duty in Broward County and being “completely demeaned, disrespected and humiliated” by workers who told her to pump her breastmilk in the bathroom like other nursing mothers have done in the past.

“That’s just plain wrong,” said Sands.

Florida law now currently excuses from jury duty pregnant women and parents who don’t work full time and have custody of children younger than 6 years old.

Sands’ measure, which would add lactating mothers to that list, was approved by a committee yesterday.

The Senate companion bill has yet to be assigned for a committee hearing.

The House Majority Office sent out a tongue-in-cheek e-mail today trying to steer fans to its new Facebook page.

Earlier this week, House Majority Leader Adam Hasner invited fans to do a Facebook search for “Florida House Majority Office” to check out his new site and join up.

But a search turned up a variety of Facebook groups - including “Stop Horse Slaughter and Murder in Mexico!” - none of which was the Majority Office’s.

“Thanks in part to Dara Kam of the Palm Beach Post, many of you know that a glitch in the Facebook search box leads folks to pages other than our own. For the record, the House Majority Office is fully supportive of stopping horse slaughter and murder in Mexico, and is proud that we have done our part to raise awareness of the issue. But our intention was to send you to our new Facebook page, not one on Mexican equines,” House Majority Office Staff Director Todd Reid wrote in an e-mail.

Reid said his staff have tried to get Facebook to fix the glitch, but in the meantime wanted to advertise a direct link to the site: www.facebook.com/FLGOPMajority.