Update: Candidate Loses 23-Year Broward Courthouse Job After Campaigning Against Judge
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Brenda Di Ioia was dumped as chief traffic court hearing officer over the holiday weekend – a courthouse job she has held for over two decades.
Was her firing political because she was running against a County Court judge, as her supporters contend?
Or was she failing to do her job, as a top court administration source says?
Brenda Di Ioia (Source: Di Ioia campaign)
Di Ioia supporters are yelling “politics.” They claim that she was targeted by the courthouse establishment because she challenged County Court Judge Nina Di Pietro.
“The only reasonable conclusion is ‘politics’ as a result of her challenging Judge DiPietro,” said one key backer of Di Ioia by e-mail.
Courthouse judges have a long history of defending their colleagues against challengers.
The third candidate in the race was also a judge — former County Judge Ian Richards.
But a well-placed courthouse source denied politics was involved and blamed the firing on Di Ioia’s failure to do her job or campaign properly.
The source is in the 17th Judicial Circuit administration and is familiar with the Di Ioia situation. The source called Browardbeat.com after the original version of this was posted online in the morning.
The source noted that Di Ioia is being paid $42,000 annually to work 20-hours a week supervising 55 traffic court dockets. Since her campaign began, she was missing administrative meetings scheduled every two weeks. The meeting attendance is required under her contract. She had been warned in writing about missing the meetings, but continued to do so, said the source.
Through another courthouse source, Browardbeat.com obtained e-mails that seemed to verify that Di Ioia had been skipping the required meetings.
The court administration also received “several” complaints that Di Ioia has been telling voters that her experience as a magistrate was the same as being a judge. Such a comparison is not only inaccurate, but could violate the Florida Supreme Court’s Code of Judicial Ethics.
Di Ioia denied she was misleading voters.
Lee was then presented with an audio tape of Di Ioia on the Joyce Kaufman talk radio show, where the candidate said she had been “on the bench” for decades and that she heard the “same kind of cases as a County Court judge.”
Browardbeat.com reviewed the tape and heard Di Ioia make those comments on the show roughly two weeks ago.
On top of these strikes against Di Ioia, the court administration source told Browardbeat.com that the candidate neglected to do routine paper work which caused five other hearing officers to suspend hearing cases because their contracts were not up-to-date. Without a contract, it was against the law for these officers to preside over cases.
County Judge Robert Lee — supervisor of traffic court — fired Di Ioia in an e-mail send on Saturday.
Lee refused comment.
There is still a possibility that Di Ioia will be hired back. The situation is in the hands of Chief Judge Peter Weinstein.
Although a traffic hearing officer is a part time job, it is a slice of her income that she will now lose. She also has a private practice with an emphasis on mediation.
As a hearing officer since 1993, Di Ioia has presided over thousands of traffic cases in a courtroom environment.
My take on this latest courthouse mess:
I originally thought the timing of this firing is highly suspicious.
But if your believe the Court Administration source, Lee had a reason that Di Ioia had to be moved out of the courthouse quickly.
Nothing is ever easy in the Broward County Courthouse.
Voters will decide this one in the August primary.
July 5th, 2016 at 12:14 pm
There is a culture of intimidation if you run against a sitting or appointed judge. It is similar to the bullies in High School.
This is why no one ran against one sitting or appointed judge in Miami-Dade County.
July 5th, 2016 at 2:18 pm
Was it really necessary to fire someone on Saturday of a THREE DAY FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND?
Were the issues really a FIRING OFFENSE AFTER 23 YEARS OF SERVICE?
Sorry I THINK IT SMELLS!
July 5th, 2016 at 3:34 pm
Surely, there is something more to the story for Judge Lee to take action over the weekend. You have no evidence to connect it to Judge Di Pietro.
FROM BUDDY:
I never said it was connected. I made it clear that the Di Ioia supporters were the ones who claim that the firing was “political.” The only allegation that I made was that the timing seemed suspicious.
Also, Judge Lee would not answer any questions.
July 5th, 2016 at 3:41 pm
Look no father than ex Judge Jay. He is close to Lee and David Di Pietro. He raised money for her campaign. I would consider him suspect number one.
July 5th, 2016 at 3:46 pm
The only thing suspect about the timing is why she wasn’t fired two months ago when she filed. Her employment was reviewed and she wasn’t fired because her contract wasn’t up until July 1. At that point, her contract wasn’t renewed.
As far as the things she says, go to her Facebook page. It’s basically an ethics violation in and of itself.
July 5th, 2016 at 3:59 pm
I have heard several magistrates, DeIoia included, claim that they are essentially judges.
July 5th, 2016 at 4:35 pm
I know Ian Richards is the underdog in this
race. However, I hope he prevails…
July 5th, 2016 at 8:30 pm
https://vine.co/v/5uOxbWHnnaZ
Decide for yourselves
July 5th, 2016 at 8:46 pm
I gave heard Brenda speak at multiple events and never did she mislead the public by intimating she is a Judge. She does however have a stellar resume and work experience.
What we see is someone who has dedicated her life to serving the community and has she has earned our trust.
She should be commended not ostracized.
July 5th, 2016 at 10:00 pm
“I have heard several magistrates, DeIoia included, claim that they are essentially judges”…well I’ve heard you like to sleep with kids, so I guess it must be true… Go back to your PS3
July 6th, 2016 at 7:48 am
Lee is a terrible judge. He gets case law published in FLW and sends cases to the appellate courts on landlord tenant cases when all the litigants are pro se so he can try and influence other judges to evict people without due process. When you have a judge in the people’s court who adjudicates thousands of evictions and the defendant never wins, then the proof is in the pudding.
He and Spechler are 2 peas in a pod. Neither one was anything to write home about. Both mean, coniving, nasty, evil little men. Spechler is such a blowhard that he decided to quit rather than get shipped off to satellite. Then threatened to sue to get his job back. How’d that work out?
Why would anyone think a magistrate is like a judge? Just because they can adjudicate cases and ask that someone be held in contempt of court?
I hope this gal wins so we can watch this play-out and maybe another terrible judge’s chickens come home to roost. At the very least she should sue the shit outta him.
July 6th, 2016 at 8:05 am
Under the Rules, traffic magistrates are allowed to say they serve in a quasi-judicial capacity. Brenda does say in public that she is a former tv “judge” and that may cause confusion.
July 6th, 2016 at 11:11 am
Why is Brenda paying for her law office’s rent from her campaign account?!?! Can someone please call the SAO and make a complaint. 3 6/15/2016 Office Edge
1580 Sawgrass Corporate Pkwy
Sunrise, FL 33323 Campaign headquarters Monetary $582.55
July 6th, 2016 at 11:39 am
No surprises here that they fired Brenda corruption has run amok under DDP and his
Wife Nina Di Pietro…
July 5th, 2016 at 9:10 pm
So let me see if I understand correctly.
1.) DDP becomes chair of BH.
2.) Moves successful CEO out and brings in inexperienced politically connected ER Doc to run $1 Billion corporation. And then things go from not so bad to darn right awful.
a.) El Sanadi begins to purge long time senior staff starting with popular SVP Marketing. No one knew at the time the real reason (hire politically connected Ad agency pushed by Chipster)
b.) COO, General Counsel, CFO, CEO at BG, terminated, in a very short time. All replaced by people with significantly less experience.
c.) El Sanadi commits suicide. No one knows why? We then find out about investigator Black, the FBI investigations, and on and on and on.
3.) DDP keeps playing power broker, his firm growing like a weed, his wife collecting $$ for her election, and BH losing money like it has not done in over 10 years! And when did this start? What was the first domino?
Yep, DDP becomes Chair.
4.) And all these things changes were being made while the DOJ was investigating!
July 6th, 2016 at 5:16 pm
on a side note, when is the “new” courthouse scheduled to open?????
July 6th, 2016 at 10:47 pm
Corrupt husband and wife team removes Brenda from her job over politics. Nina will not win.
July 9th, 2016 at 10:21 pm
After reading this, Brenda Di Ioia will have my vote. Hope it will be counted.
July 12th, 2016 at 5:21 pm
Under the law, she can say she handles traffic cases and other Magistrate related duties. She can say she has 27 years handling such cases, for the court system. She cannot say she is a judge. I do not see where she ever said she was a judge. If she says she is handling and adjudicating cases as a Magistrate, then that is accurate and not improper.
The courthouse crowd has WAY too much petty drama.
July 25th, 2016 at 9:05 pm
David DiPietro supports Trump, no way his wife Nina would not either.
August 4th, 2016 at 3:12 am
Amazing …How many of those who “donated” money to her election campaign have directly done business with HER HUSBAND and how many of those who donated now want their money back for fear of being caught up in campaign finance fraud. Is this not the same person when working for the PD’s office called coworkers “F%$#ing Idiots” and was subsequently fired by Frankenstein? Is this the same now candidate who had to replace her signage for cannon violations and had placed them illegally without permits on Broward County city streets? Brenda Di Ioia has 27 total years practicing law 23 of those years as a Broward Traffic Magistrate as well as CHIEF Traffic Magistrate. Brenda has almost 300000 cases she has presided over out of all those only 6 decisions were appealed and NONE over turned. Brenda was fired from her position on a holiday weekend and to date NO ONE has answered 1 email or returned 1 of numerous phone calls requesting a face to face meeting. One does not have to be a Rhodes Scholar to see who is MORE qualified to sit on the bench…Brenda Di Ioia or Nina The Foul Mouth liar who by the way is only an appointee not an elected Judge. I’m 99.9% positive Gov. Scott REGRETS his decision to placing her in such a position. Oh by the way isn’t her husband suing The Gov. and demanding his legal bills be paid for by taxpayer money? I wonder if they live at 1313 Corruption Lane in the town of Mt Fraud. If you vote for Nina and you have enough pull I’m sure your case will be taken care of.
August 4th, 2016 at 4:37 pm
it’s also a violation for Nina to be photographed and endorsed by Lori Parrish, who’s partisan AND running this cycle, Isn’t it?
FROM BUDDY:
Lori Parrish is not running. She’s retiring, as the post stated.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:05 pm
Amazing my original comments were edited by whoever screens postings. NOT 1 word of what I wrote that was edited out was false. Just another media outlet who censors free speech