Third Judge Busted For DUI! This Time It’s Pills
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Circuit Judge Lynn Rosenthal shouldn’t have gone to work today.
Instead of presiding over a trial, she became the third Broward County judge was busted for DUI in recent weeks.
The judge told sheriff’s deputies that she had been taking Ambien, a potent prescription sleeping medicine.
If she was taking Ambien, she might beat the DUI charges. Apparently it is not illegal to drive under the influence of Ambien, according to the article here.
Rosenthal was arrested after allegedly colliding with a parked sheriff’s vehicle. Sources say 30 or 40 BSO employees witnessed the collision.
She earlier had an accident on Interstate 595, claiming a truck tried to force her off the road, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office report.
Rosenthal was handcuffed and taken into custody at the entrance to the courthouse parking area for judges.
Rosenthal being handcuffed outside the courthouse (photo: JAAblog)
One highly placed political source said Rosenthal had been taking Ambien because the stress of her re-election campaign prevented her from sleeping.
“If she can’t campaign without taking pills, she shouldn’t be a judge,” the source opined.
If the police are correct –I don’t automatically think they are because I’ve seen too many political dirty tricks and trumped up charges in the past. – she was going to work stoned. Whether it is Ambien or booze, it really doesn’t matter.
She was about to take the bench impaired!
Two other Broward judges are awaiting DUI charges:
*Cynthia Imperato, who was arrested allegedly driving drunk in November 2013 incident in Boca Raton.
*Gisele Pollack, who has been suspended by the Florida Supreme Court last week after a DUI arrest and allegations she was drunk on the bench.
Today’s charges were a political earthquake that rocked the Broward Bar.
Rosenthal was one of the few incumbents facing a re-election challenge and today’s arrest puts in doubt what was expected to be her easy re-election. Rosenthal will now face challenger Frantz “Jahra” McLawrence with a DUI charge hanging over her head. Even if the DUI charges are dropped, going to work stoned on Ambien is not the most acceptable qualifications for judicial office.
Appointed to the bench less than a year ago by Gov. Rick Scott, Rosenthal is a former Assistant U. S. Attorney.
I don’t know if any of these women are guilty of driving when drunk. If they are, maybe Chief Judge Peter Weinstein should consider a new innovation for the courthouse: Its own daily AA meeting, to supplement the weekly ones now held at Public Defender Howard Finkelstein’s office.
And maybe Weinstein can arrange to have some warm milk and a comfy pillow delivered to Rosenthal’s home. That way maybe she can get a good night’s sleep and not come to work stoned on Ambien.
Here is the police report: 3959_001
Judge Lynn Rosenthal at Memorial Day ceremony in Tamarac yesterday (Photo: Tamaratalk.com, Coralspringstalk, com)
May 27th, 2014 at 3:05 pm
It takes some real serious commitment to booze to get arrested at 8 AM(!!!) for DUI.
FROM BUDDY:
When I started on the Fort Lauderdale News in the early 1970s (It became the Sun-Sentinel), the place was filled with boozers. Some would run out to a bar down near the railroad tracks for triple vodkas in a plastic cup before taking their desks at roughly 6:00 a.m. They’d gulp it down on the way back because drinking wasn’t allowed in the newsroom, but working plastered overlooked if you didn’t make trouble and could finish your work. I remember only two people fired for drinking — one got in a drunken brawl in the newsroom and another was obviously drunk during planning meetings.
May 27th, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Buddy, you and I both know, In the United States, nearly 14 million adults, or every one in 13 adults, abuse alcohol or have an alcoholism problem. The legal, medical, and law enforcement, occupations, may be even higher. Do the math, for every 13 Judges, 1 abuses alcohol or pills
May 27th, 2014 at 3:17 pm
Mclawrence has no connections to pull this off, lol. Much kudos to Sheriff Isreal and BSO for not white washing this as a traffic infraction or covering it up.
FROM BUDDY:
I agree. I am more impressed every day with BSO under Sheriff Scott Israel.
I also agree that most people won’t know anything but the Rosenthal name when they enter the voting booth. She could still win, but it won’t be as easy.
May 27th, 2014 at 3:29 pm
I have heard from some close friends of Judge Rosenthal, who have cautioned, not to rush to judgment. Judge David Youg Ret. also a TV Judge, facebooked that he has known Rosenthal since elementary school, and it may be a reaction to medication
May 27th, 2014 at 3:30 pm
That was Judge David Young, he is going to kill me for misspelling his name
May 27th, 2014 at 3:37 pm
Buddy Nevins’ early career = Mad Men.
May 27th, 2014 at 3:44 pm
Remember, DUI is driving while impaired not limited to alcohol. There are a lot of rumors flying around that this DUI had nothing to do with booze and was about prescription meds. Someone on JAAB raised an interesting point that one could be impaired from Ambien and it would not be considered a DUI in FL.
Another rumor is that she hit something (not a person) before she got the Courthouse, if this is true I think her election is sunk. If she has to contend only with a DUI, she has raised and loaned herself almost 200k she can control the media message.
On the other side in a low turnout election with the only major races being ones with democrats, being a republican appointed by rick scott with a dui hanging over your head is not good position to be in.
Then again, she could be another Judge Watson, win the election and possibly lose the robe thereafter.
FROM BUDDY:
I don’t know if a driver is using Ambien they are immune to DUI. I believe if someone is so impaired they (allegedly) hit a BSO vehicle, they don’t belong on the bench that day. Stay home. The courthouse will continued to function.
May 27th, 2014 at 3:55 pm
Why is it surprising that Broward County’s courts have turned into such a folly.
You have “retiring” judges like Eileen O’Connor who should have just hung a sign out on her chamber doors “verdicts and court orders FOR SALE – inquire within”.
I’ve never seen such a kangaroo court where a judge caters to a law firm she has/had close relations with and grants court rulings to HUGE LAW FIRMS like TRIPP SCOTT in the privacy of her chambers.
Lets hope she buries that retirement package in her back yard and doesn’t dig it up to the statute of limitations has expired.
May 27th, 2014 at 4:33 pm
I think the real point here is that a judge had no problem showing up for work in this condition…just what I want, a presiding judge half asleep at my trial.
May 27th, 2014 at 4:34 pm
What we have learned
She uses Rosenthal to appear to be more Jewish for voters since she legally goes by Lynn Feig.
She hit the cop car going over the speed limit.
She showed the cops a video she took herself WHILE DRIVING ON 595 which shows her weaving around. WTF?
Worse and this alone should she lose the Robe, she did roadsides. What?
If Ambien was the cause of this, one has to ask how many did she take? How often has she been on the bench in this condition?
She is toast now, these facts are horrible and there is going to be a lot of ongoing debate as to the legitimacy of the Ambien defense. If Satz does not file the DUI due to the ambien defense the voters will crush her. MADD will get in on this etc.
Even with her 200k in the bank she will have a hard time recovering from this at the ballot booth
May 27th, 2014 at 4:50 pm
To add insult to injury, her campaign manager is Alain Jean, who is worthless, other than nice suits and shoes, AKA empty suit, he will not be able to pull he out of this
May 27th, 2014 at 4:51 pm
Forgot to add, this story will get world wide media attention if the Judge plays the ambien card or the outside State Attorney lets her off due to ambien.
Can you imagine Nancy Grace and the other legal talking heads poking fun at Florida for enabling a Judge to drive around f’d up and get off because Ambien is not listed as a drug on can get a DUI for?
That topic alone will be talked about all summer.
Rosenthal-Feig is a goner.
May 27th, 2014 at 5:15 pm
I’m stoned on marijuana half the time in court by my own admission in Browardbeat. So what’s the big deal about Ambien?
FROM BUDDY:
Sam Fields never wrote that he was stoned in court.
May 27th, 2014 at 5:17 pm
She refused blood/urine test, thus violating the law. That’s a no no for a judge. Additionally, if it was only ambien why did she refuse. Also BSO should check her chambers. They may find additional evidence.
PS Federal prosecutors make the worst judges.
PSS Kudos to Sheriff Israel for the way this was handled.
May 27th, 2014 at 5:18 pm
This is above and beyond Ambien. She could have killed someone. In addition she refused the urine/blood test. In other words we can presume it positive for either benzos or even opiates,marijuana, or perhaps some illegal substance. You don’t get behind the god damn wheel when you are impaired.
May 27th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
he has to be stoned somewhere
May 27th, 2014 at 5:56 pm
Who are you kidding Alain Jean is throwing on a dashiki and pulling a Don King as we speak telling McLawrence he is his brother form another mother that he can lead him to the promised land.
Rosenthal, Jean is saying, who is Rosenthal?
May 27th, 2014 at 6:18 pm
Alan Jean the Don King of consultants no doubt he is callng mclawrence to get a piece of his campaign. At the thrilla in Manila Don King flew in with the champ Frazier and flew home with the new champ Ali.
May 27th, 2014 at 6:39 pm
From the police report:
http://www.browardbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/3959_001.pdf
[After she claimed to have taken Ambien at 10 PM the night before,] Lynn Feig was taken into custody for DUI and transported to the Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT) facility. … I requested Ms. Feig submit to a breath, urine and blood test to determine the presence of any chemical or controlled substances. Ms. Feig agreed to submit to the breath test only. She was advised of the consequences of refusing (Florida Implied Consent) and again refused to submit to a urine and blood test. [Breath test showed .000, no alcohol at all]
And the law says…
http://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/dui-refusal-blood-breath-urine-test/florida.htm
Florida law requires you to take a breath, blood, or urine test if you are arrested for a DUI. Florida’s “implied consent” law says that if you are lawfully arrested by an officer who has probable cause to believe that you have been driving under the influence, then you consent to taking a chemical test of your blood, breath or urine for the purpose of determining your blood alcohol content (BAC) or for drugs. […] In Florida, you will lose your license for one year for your first refusal. For your second and any subsequent refusal, your license will be suspended for 18 months and you will face the additional consequences, such as time in jail, that come with committing a misdemeanor.
May 27th, 2014 at 9:24 pm
Rosenthal will most likely lose her license so I guess someone will have to drive her to candidate events.
People like Ron mills don’t get it, the public will give no quarter for her behavior one way or another. No matter what, the public will think she got off on a break because she is a judge. Bad reaction to meds, she’s a judge, higher standard. She could have killed someone on 595. That is all the voters will see and think about.
Judge Mclawrence get used to it.
May 27th, 2014 at 11:49 pm
Judge Pollock gets nothing but well wishes for a speedy recovery. Judge Rosenthal gets nothing but condemnations. What’s up with that?
May 28th, 2014 at 9:38 am
So, if I run into a BSO cruiser, stumble on my feet, show police a video of me driving impaired a few minutes earlier, fail a roadside sobriety test, blow a .00 on a breathalyzer, then refuse a blood test, I have a good chance of BSO not forcefully drawing blood using the nurse at the jail or after being transported to Broward General? Most other folks would have had blood forcefully drawn. Nice going BSO.
And kudos to the judge for refusing the blood test. Ambien is not on the gubment’s list of C-4’s. So she can just say she took Ambien, refuse the blood test, and we’ll never know what prescription drug(s) she might have really been stoned on and whether she even had a prescription.
May 28th, 2014 at 11:41 am
Why is the Sheriff being lauded for doing his job? Plus,how and why would you cover up the circumstances of someone hitting a police car at the courthouse witnessed by 30-40 people. That could also be political suicide, do you think of those 30-40 witnesses no one would talk about what they saw or heard, please.
May 28th, 2014 at 12:32 pm
The Ambien defense should not allow this DUI charge to be broken down to a reckless. She refused blood and urine. IF only Ambien were in her system, she should have not refused and taken the test.
We don’t know if there were,under FL Law, controlled substances in her system. She can claim Ambien, but that is still a question of fact for the jury to decide.
May 28th, 2014 at 4:17 pm
@14 “Federal prosecutors make the worst judges” – so true!!
@22 “Most other folks would have had blood forcefully drawn” – the police can only force a blood draw when there is either a death or a serious bodily injury. Property damage doesn’t count.
May 28th, 2014 at 4:18 pm
What jury? .00 on a breathalyzer and no blood test. This will never make it to trial. They probably can’t even get her on a reckless driving charge. Most likely she pleads to a failure to use due care or nothing at all and she walks. She can also petition DMV to get her license back and guess how that’s going to go.
Meanwhile, the local press just eats up the Ambien BS story and is asking her questions like “What can you tell us about Ambien?”.. and then there’s the local Dr’s all talking about how Ambien affects the central nervous system and yada yada yada.
They should have drawn her blood or gotten a warrant to do so. They didn’t have very far to go. DUI investigators let her slide when she refused the blood test. Under the same circumstances, any of us is getting blood drawn whether we want to or not.
May 28th, 2014 at 6:21 pm
This could have been sweapt under the rug by BSO. It wasn’t! She was treated like everyone else. She’s got a choice to make. Admit DUI, show remorse and drug rehab and the JQC and SCt will go easy on her. Or she can fight it go to trial get a not guilty and the JQC and Sct will come down real hard on her.
May 29th, 2014 at 3:32 am
I think its awesome that drug addict (as once you are you are for life) Howard discusses what makes a good judge and what doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong I think this behavior should be grounds for discipline and outrage. What I don’t care about hearing is how Howard” I used to go to work high on cocaine” should be the judge of that…. And if people tell me the old excuse of every preacher caught with a hooked, it takes an sinner to help sinners you’re full of it.
Hypocrisy is rampant and no where is it more fierce than Broward County. The Judges that smoke weed, the state attorneys that do the same and other behavior. I agree she should be suspended and she will probably lose the election, but to see comments from people that are in no position to comment is laughable.