Prosecutor Stacey Honowitz wants her arrest post removed
We received an email from an attorney requesting we remove a certain post from our website. The post concerned Broward Sex Crimes Prosecutor Stacey Honowitz’s arrest for shoplifting at a Publix Supermarket in 2018. The removal request appears below:
Good Day,
I hope this message finds you well in these trying times. I am writing on behalf of Stacey Honowitz to kindly request the removal of the article published to the above-copied link. The incident, a misunderstanding, is a most embarrassing blemish on Ms. Honowitz’s otherwise pristine record and career. The charge was readily nolle prossed (please see attached). As you can certainly appreciate, the continued publication has caused and continues to cause Ms. Honowitz great distress and damage to her reputation.
Please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any questions. We thank you in advance for your time dedicated to this sensitive matter.
Cordially Yours,
Vanessa McGill
Stacey Honowitz is a sex crimes prosecutor and an advocate for harsher sex offender restrictions. To quote Ms. Honowitz, “Tougher laws [are] needed to protect our kids from sex offenders.”
While we agree with Ms. Honowitz that sexual abuse needs to be prevented, we strongly disagree that tougher laws are needed to protect anyone from persons forced to register as “sex offenders”. The overwhelming majority (95%+) of people on the registry will not re-offend and are trying to live productive lives, yet the continued publication of their information on a public registry prevents them from obtaining employment, housing and other basic needs for themselves and their families.
For most registrants, their crime was a one-time offense and a complete aberration in an otherwise law abiding life. Surely most were guilty, but many were not. Some were wrongfully accused, baited and switched in a sting, or a misunderstanding for which they took a plea decades ago out of convenience and to avoid the risk of jail time without knowing what was to come as far as the registry. Arguably their incidents are also a “most embarrassing blemish” in an “otherwise pristine record” and “the continued publication” of their information on a sex offender registry “has caused and continues to cause” them “great distress and damage”.
So what to do about this request to remove the article? Since the letter came from an attorney who lists one of her areas of practice as defamation cases, the implication is that if we chose not to take down the article we might face a lawsuit. However, the Miami Herald’s story, Veteran Sex-Crimes Prosecutor Accused of Shoplifting is still up. So is the Sun-Sentinel’s coverage. The surveillance footage of her sticking the cosmetic items in her purse and leaving the store has not been taken down. So why should we remove our post?
We did update the story to state that the charges were nolle prossed, but do we need to take down the entire article? Even if the shoplifting incident was unintentional and she simply forgot to pay for the items or mindlessly put them in her purse without realizing, she prosecutes people who unknowingly or unintentionally violate a technical registration rule all the time and even if decades have passed without incident, her office still vigorously opposes petitions for removal from the registry.
It’s very possible that the arrest has given Ms. Honowitz a different perspective and greater empathy for people who “as [she] can certainly appreciate” are suffering great distress and damage from their continued publication on the registry. Or, it’s possible she could care less. We’d like to see where she stands in light of the fact that she’s “kindly requesting” we take down a post.
Frankly we’re impressed that our little forum would even concern her enough to retain an attorney to contact us. But, before we act on the request, we’d really like to hear the thoughts of our membership, so please feel free to share them in the comments below. We’d also love to hear from Ms.Honowitz herself, given the ironic nature of her request. If she would like to be a guest on a future member call, consider this a public invitation.
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Hopefully she will no longer keep her head in the sand about the inescapable reality of life, that all people have the potential to fall into trouble.
She would have to be a complete simpleton to think, with nearly a million on the registry, that our country is saturated with child predators. As a prosecutor, though, she may simply be incapable of recognizing anyone passing before her as human beings with complex life stories that too often bring people into these situations.
I am thankful that there are actually very few true predators out there. It is also my firm belief that most are already being held accountable for their actions.
My understanding is a prosecutor asks for a nolle prossed for a variety of reasons, including: reevaluation of evidence, emergence of new evidence, failure of witnesses to cooperate, or desire to give the defendant a second chance. Would love to hear what the reason was.
The reason was she’s a prosecutor and drinking buddies with the judges in the circuit, as well as whichever other ADA was assigned to her case.
It’d be a shame if someone nominated her for a Shiitake Award and didn’t bother to remove that. Would be a bigger shame if she won and got posted on the wall of shame. Of course, I don’t know anyone who’d do a thing like that, maybe someone who had no problem posting stuff about other shameful Broward County residents, but again, I can’t imagine who’d want to do such a thing…
Let’s see now…..for years now she as a prosecutor probably lived and breathed putting sexual offenders in jail/prison. Advocated to put more rules, laws in place each and every year that goes by, making it tougher and harder for a person who is trying to stay a straight and narrow life path, trying to better their selves but can’t because of people like this. Well Ms. Honowitz, you have gotten a small taste of your own medicine, which is surely bitter! Because you made a mistake, or maybe it wasn’t a mistake, which truly knows? , you want something that it sounds like you have never given to anybody, and that’s forgiveness. I, in my personal opinion believe you don’t deserve forgiveness. You messed up, now “you” Ms. Honowitz should live by the rules of life that you try to enforce each and every day!
Tony, you make a point that chimes with a Biblical truth:
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:2
That is why I am quick to show grace, and slow to react with judgement on others in my life. She might do well to do the same.
This is a tricky one.
Having been both the brunt of incorrect public perception, and a person who believes in taking the high road, I’d like to say take it down but….
As FAC has stated this is an opportunity to see if her experience has changed her perspective.
Conundrum.
What about writing her back? Asking for a heart felt letter of how it feels to be wrongly accused, or have the facts twisted to show intent when there is none – to be published in it’s place?
She would probably NOT give such a statement for us to publish. If she did, I would take down the original.
If she refuses, I would write something that says that we understand how life altering these charges can be and that is why we fight for humanity, science based reality, and justice – not revenge.
Bottom line – if we don’t take it down we would be no better than her, the system we fight, and the media itself.
We all know we are better than that.
Wow, really???
Please don’t embarrass this poor prosecutor with any further embarrassment from a criminal event due to her alleged criminal behavior, so that she can get back to work embarrassing others for their alleged own behavior. Am I reading this right?