Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Conflict anyone?

By now all of you here in the City of Miami must be familiar with the ongoing feud between long time Coconut Grove resident Reid Welch and City of Miami commissioner Marc Sarnoff which culminated in Mr. Sarnoff violently attacking Mr. Welch a few weeks back.  Our friend Al Crespo covered the story, here is the Police incident report where Mr. Welch is clearly identified as the "victim"...

That's all well and good until Mr. Sarnoff's wife decided to serve Mr. Welch with a restraining order...


Ok, whatever.  Now this is where things get interesting, on Monday Mr. Welch had to appear before a Miami circuit court judge regarding this restraining order where the judge continued the case till January 6, 2012.  Mrs. Sarnoff was represented by an attorney named Jay Solowsky while Mr. Sarnoff was represented by a City of Miami attorney named George Wysong, this is where things get a little interesting.  Let's take a look at Mr. Wysong's bio from the City of Miami website...
Mr. Wysong serves as the Police Legal Advisor for the City of Miami Police Department. In that capacity, he handles matters which affect the Police Department, and provides counsel and advice to the Chief of Police and his staff, litigates contraband forfeiture cases, prepares legal bulletins for dissemination to the sworn police officers, provides advices and counsel to the City's Emergency Operations Center in times of emergency. In addition to those duties, Mr. Wysong also reviews contracts and agreements relating to the Police Department and drafts legislation relating to quality of life issues.
So Mr Wysong is the City of Miami police liason, from his bio says his job is to "handle matters which affect the Police Department."  If that's the case, why was he representing Sarnoff at this hearing?  In fact, based on his bio, shouldn't he have been attending this hearing on behalf of the City of Miami police department who should have arrested Mr. Sarnoff for his assault on Mr. Welch?  Doesn't this constitute a serious conflict of interest for Mr. Wysong?


Now, this isn't the first time that I've found Mr. Wysong wearing two hats, there are several other instances where Mr. Wysong has found himself in places where he shouldn't be where there is a clear and undeniable conflict, we're going to have to wait a couple of weeks before we can reveal those stories.  Regardless, if this was any other city, I'd be shocked and appalled at Mr. Wysong's behavior but it's Miami so it's par for the course!


On another note, for those of you that have been following my story regarding the "body wire at attorney's office", things are about to get a lot more interesting.  It seems as if the attorney whose privileged conversations were recorded at the behest of assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski isn't too happy about those recordings being made...

2 comments:

  1. Not only do I agree with your assessment of Sarnoff's representation by Wysong, but I have another question for you SB: Why should the city represent him in this matter at all ?? This was a personal fight, about campaign posters. I can't imagine why the city would defend a "candidate" trying to protect his campaign signs from being destroyed. This also is a conflict, and I would love to hear your take.

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  2. No doubt. Why is the taxpayer paying for Sarnoff lawyer?

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