Miami-Dade prosecutor resigns after judge disqualifies him over alleged misconduct

MIAMI – A Miami-Dade assistant state attorney resigned after a judge disqualified him over alleged prosecutorial misconduct that surfaced in the case of the former leader of the Miami Liberty City’s John Doe gang.

State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle released a statement on Friday saying she had accepted the resignation of veteran Assistant State Attorney Michael Von Zamft.

“I will ask my top litigators to examine every aspect of this case and determine the best path forward,” Rundle said in the statement.

In the 15-page order that prompted Von Zamft’s resignation, Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Andrea Wolfson wrote Third District Court of Appeal Judge Bronwyn C. Miller was among the assistant state attorneys who also worked on the case.

“There was a serious issue regarding possible witness testimony manipulation by the Assistant State Attorneys on this case – not only in the past but also in the present,” Wolfson wrote.

Miller testified during the evidentiary hearing that prompted Von Zamft’s disqualification from the retrial and said she filed an amended discovery exhibit during the trial preparation process.

The exhibit disclosed “the potential favors the witnesses were receiving during the collaboration meetings at the State Attorney’s Office (food, beverages, and tobacco products),” Wolfson wrote. “The first time that document was ever even discussed was during the hearing.”

Wolfson disqualified Von Zamft and Assistant State Attorney Stephen Mitchell over “witness manipulation tactics,” a “prosecutorial philosophy of winning at all costs,” “evidence regarding over 20 years of allegations of misconduct,” and Corey Smith’s right to a “fair” resentencing trial.

In her statement, Fernadez-Rundle also said the core mission of her office and all prosecutors was to seek truth and justice.

“We are also the voice of the murder victims who cannot speak for themselves,” Fernandez-Rundle said.

Smith, 51, was convicted of four murders related to the gang, which detectives said distributed cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana from 1994 to 1999.

In 1997, Cynthia Brown was the only one who identified Smith as a suspect in the murder of a 19-year-old rival. Before she could testify, police officers found her dead in a motel room. Without her, the case fell apart.

In 1998, bullets struck Angel Wilson, the girlfriend of Smith’s rival, 16 times while she was in her car, and her lungs were riddled with metal fragments from the car door’s metal.

In 2000, a Miami-Dade grand jury indicted Smith. Prosecutors charged him for the murders of Brown, Wilson, Leon Hadley, and Jackie Pope.

In 2004, Smith was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder. He received sentences of life in prison for the murders of Pope and Hadley and sentences of death for the murders of Brown and Wilson.

Smith was also convicted of conspiracy to engage in a criminal enterprise, engaging in a criminal enterprise, conspiracy to traffic in marijuana, conspiracy to traffic in cocaine, four counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and two counts of manslaughter for the deaths of Melvin Lipscomb and Marlon Beneby.

In 2010, Smith filed a motion for collateral relief after a death sentence has been imposed and affirmed on direct appeal and the case is pending.

Judge cites transcript of jail calls

Wolfson took issue with a jail call on Aug. 2, 2023, between Von Zamfts and LaTravis “Trav” Gallashaw, an inmate she described as “a convicted murderer in a case that involves witness elimination.”

Gallashaw, 46, who was released from prison in 2012, has been at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center since 2017.

SAO statement

Read the order