A man hired to train Miami prosecutors wrote a violent, racy ‘lust’ novel

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A lawyer who was just hired to train young prosecutors at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is the recent author of a Rated R novel with sado-masochistic themes depicting women as sex objects and a transgender woman as an “it,” a “he-beast” and “the thing.”

“Explore a woman’s desire for submission as she stands accused of being the infamous “Sex Toy Killer,” the book blurb says.

Steve Gosney was sworn in last week as a new hire for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, run by Katherine Fernandez Rundle. He was hired amid a slate of changes Fernandez Rundle made in response to judicial findings and defense lawyers’ complaints that some of her prosecutors violate the legal rules of criminal court. Gosney told a social media audience that the state attorney liked his “passion for ethics.”

It appears that neither Fernandez Rundle nor any of her top chiefs read Gosney’s novel, Death Penalty Desires, which is easily purchased on his self-named website or Amazon, has been discussed on his Rumble video channel and is listed on his resume. The State Attorney’s Office did not release documents requested by the Miami Herald related to his hiring, including his job description and salary.

Gosney told the Miami Herald that he doesn’t condone the sex-based violence and misogynistic thinking of his characters. He said the book illustrates his stance against the death penalty.

“It’s a morality play. It’s a commentary on society. It’s a meditation on the system, and how the system can go wrong in myriad ways to convict an innocent person, and it’s a tour through Death Row,” he said in an interview.

In a statement Wednesday, State Attorney’s Office spokesman Ed Griffith said the book was written while Gosney “was a [Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’] member working as a public defender.” The book was written less than five months ago.

“At the time of his hire, we were confident that he would be a valuable addition to our office in a special projects, legal, appellate, litigation support and training functions,” Griffith said. “When I asked about this fictional novel, Mr. Gosney indicated that the key conceptual idea was to show what can happen to an innocent individual when the criminal justice system does not work as intended.”

Gosney, 56, has experience both in criminal defense and prosecution. He served as a prosecutor for six years in Flagler County, and spent the last 14 years in the public defender’s office in Daytona Beach, where, among other things, he trained new appellate attorneys.

As a self-published author, Gosney sells a PG and an R-rated version of his book. He has written other books, including Brucie the One-Eyed Wonder Dog for children, and a Christian-based Handbook for Individual Freedoms.

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The book

The Herald read the R-rated version of Death Penalty Desires, in which a prosecutor frames the main character for her husband’s murder, and she is sentenced to death. The prosecutor is described as drooling as he imagines media coverage and a possible judgeship.

The vast majority of females in the book are described with vulgar disrespect by the various characters and the narrator. There are violent sex scenes, including between the husband and wife. Themes of men controlling or dominating women against their will are threads throughout the novel.

There are several rapes or sexual assaults. The murdered husband is found with a sex toy lodged in his anus; a horse tail is attached to it.

When a prosecutor views the crime scene photos, he is “intoxicated” by photos of a “very dead” blonde woman.

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“The necrophiliac perversity aspect of his lust did not even cross his mind. ... He had shared popcorn with other prosecutors as they watched underage girls getting sodomized,” Gosney wrote. “He remembered one new prosecutor — a small tart young thing — who gave it up to him after one video watching session. The thought gave him a smile.”

The main character entertains an offer from the prison warden of living in a basement as his “submissive sex slave.”

One character muses that he’s “gonna rage f— “ a woman and “make her pay.”

A transgender inmate, described as a “man-beast” and “crazy eyed horror” with a “surgical abomination” and “mutilated crotch” threatens to sexually attack the main character. The “c” word is used to describe the main character’s female anatomy.

The book equates being female with being submissive. The main character is described at one point as having “accepted her feminine need — her primal desire for masculine domination.”

Most female characters are portrayed as sex objects.

An investigator struts through a hospital, eyeing every woman he passes and sizing them up for sex. He sees one woman and thinks, “I’d do her.”

A nurse, described as a “hospital slut,” throws herself at her boss, hoping he’ll impregnate her so she can quit her job.

Female heroes?

The book was written in a 10-day span in February, according to the website, but was “drawn from a lifetime of experiences.” The book summary calls it “a murder mystery and law novel set in the world of kink and passion. Try not to draw conclusions about the author from the content herein!”

Gosney said excerpts should not be taken out of context, and emphasized that the novel is a work of fiction. He cited several female characters he said were depicted as heroes.

One is a prison guard who testifies for the framed main character.

Another is an inmate nicknamed for anatomical reasons as “the Eunuch,” who performs a heroic act when he crushes the neck of the transgender inmate described repeatedly as a “he-beast,” to stop the inmate’s sexual assault of the main character.

The third female hero cited by Gosney is a defense attorney who serves as “second chair” to her husband, “hearing her words spoken confidently by her husband” in the court proceedings, and then takes over, very capably, when he’s exhausted. She needs help handling the complexities of a death penalty case, so a male defense attorney is brought in, and he takes the job for the publicity, and because he’s sexually attracted to the client.

The story ends with the framed wife being set free from prison. She is described as having grown personally while incarcerated, and realizes “a primal part of her yearned for a dominant master. A man to take control.” The defense attorney, she realizes, is “a man worthy of being called daddy.” She agrees to wear the closet full of dresses and high heels that he bought her, because she wants to make him happy.

In the book acknowledgments, Gosney thanks his friends, including online followers with account names like Legal Vices and Let’s Go Brandon.

Gosney told his Rumble audience that he moved with his wife and son to Miami from Daytona Beach. He said Fernandez Rundle’s office “crafted a position” for him.

“They’ve been looking for a defense perspective,” Gosney said of Fernandez Rundle’s office on his Rumble program. “It’s almost a dream job. ... They said we need you here. We’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Gosney said he’ll be writing policies, offering his ethics expertise, training young prosecutors and maybe being part of a prosecution integrity unit. Fernandez Rundle did not announce creation of such a unit, though it had been requested by local defense attorneys; Gosney said his work focus is “up in the air.”

“Everybody says Miami’s great,” he said on Rumble, “except for the traffic.”