URGENT:  Florida Court Restricts Media's Right To Investigate Case.  Read here.

FreeSeanCasey.org

This case should concern all of us.  What happened to Sean Casey could happen to anyone.  This is a story about a young man who was accused in Florida of a crime he did not commit and is currently serving a 12½-year prison sentence at New River Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.

On March 11, 2001, Sean Casey was charged with DUI Manslaughter, Vehicular Homicide, and Leaving the Scene of an Accident with Death.  The charges stem from a traffic accident on Harding Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida, in which an automobile owned by Sean Casey struck and killed an elderly pedestrian crossing the street.  The only description of a driver was that of a Black male.  Sean is a fair-skinned Caucasian male.  The car was abandoned around a mile away.  Minutes later, police found the car and sent a unit to Sean’s apartment on the other side of town, where he was located.  The police arrested him even though there was absolutely no evidence he was the driver of the vehicle.

Sean Casey hired prominent Miami criminal defense attorney Milton Hirsch to defend him, but instead Hirsch told Sean to flee the country.  He had Sean meet with psychologist, Michael E. Rappaport, to also convince him he should flee.  Both convinced Sean that the State Attorney’s Office was going to show no regard for the truth and he needed to flee the country to avoid being wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit.

An arrest warrant was issued and Sean returned to the U.S. in 2006.  Milton Hirsch set Sean up by coercing him into signing a plea agreement instead of going to trial where Sean would have had the opportunity to reveal Hirsch’s and Rappaport’s criminal advice to flee and prove his innocence.  They were aiding and abetting a fugitive and obstructing justice and were going to do everything to not get caught.

In 2007, Sean tried to vacate his plea and go to trial.  At the hearing both Hirsch and Rappaport committed perjury by denying they ever gave Sean the advice to flee even though tape recordings exist where both of them may or may not have given this advice  (Sean is prohibited by Court Order from revealing what is on the tapes).  Judge Leonard Glick would not listen to the tapes and refused to vacate the plea.  What is worse, the prosecutor on this case, Assistant State Attorney Gail Levine, knows what is on the tapes, yet chooses to protect Hirsch and Rappaport instead of opening a closed case and seeking the truth.

In 2009, Judge John W. Thornton, Jr., sealed the tapes so the public cannot find out what is on them.  Thomas R. Julin of the law firm of Hunton & Williams is representing Sean pro bono in an effort to unseal these tapes so the truth can finally be told.  Sean’s Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were blatantly violated.  Please read his story.  You will be shocked at how the criminal justice system really works in this country!

Last Updated 8-21-2010