Dave Aronberg, Palm Beach County state attorney since 2012, won't seek fourth term

WEST PALM BEACH — Dave Aronberg, Palm Beach County's top prosecutor and one of its best-known and most powerful political figures, announced Monday that he will not seek a fourth term in office in 2024.

"I love this job and am grateful for the opportunity to serve my community as State Attorney since my first election in 2012," Aronberg said in a prepared statement released Monday.

"Nothing is forever, and this position is not meant to be a lifetime career. As such, I will not be seeking a fourth term in 2024."

One person already has shown interest in replacing Aronberg as state attorney, an office staffed with more than 100 prosecutors and 250 people in all. Gregg S. Lerman, a longtime Palm Beach County defense attorney, has filed papers to run as a Democrat.

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Office raised Aronberg's profile on issues, led to TV appearances

A former Democratic state senator from the Greenacres area, Aronberg defeated two opponents for his first term in 2012. Now Circuit Judge Dina Keever ran as a Republican and Robert Gershman as an independent. He ran unopposed for re-election in 2016 and 2020.

The office gave him a platform to target issues such as illegal sober homes and patient brokering, human trafficking and, most recently, fraud committed under the Paycheck Protection Program of the federal CARES Act, which was intended to help businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In speaking out on these and other criminal justice issues, Aronberg has become a prominent national figure through frequent appearances sharing opinions and legal analysis on television networks such as MSNBC, CNN and NewsNation. He appeared on MSNBC on Wednesday discussing former President Donald Trump's recent indictment.

In 2021, he took himself out of consideration to be the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, opting to remain in his role as state attorney. President Joe Biden later appointed Markenzy Lapointe to the post instead.

"We have always kept politics out of our decision-making and focused on the core mission of holding violent offenders and career criminals accountable while protecting victims of crime, " Aronberg said in his statement Monday.

"The result has been dramatic improvements in conviction rates and strengthened working relationships with local, state and federal agencies."

Reflecting on his time in office, Aronberg told the The Palm Beach Post in an interview Monday that one of his proudest achievements was the agency's work to crack down on illegal activity by sober home operators. His office launched a task force comprised of prosecutors, lawyers, police detectives, doctors and industry operators in 2016 whose work has led to more than 100 arrests.

Others were the creation of two other task forces — one to combat human trafficking formed in 2017 that has made more than 50 arrests and one launched this year to investigate and prosecute Paycheck Protection Program fraud.

"We've been able to accomplish all of our main goals here. Cleaning up the drug treatment industry. Reducing the number of deaths in the opioid epidemic. We're leading the fight against fentanyl," he said, referring to a 13% reduction in fatal fentanyl overdoses countywide last year.

Who is Dave Aronberg? A study in contradiction.

Nouman Raja case among Aronberg's best-known prosecutions

Aronberg said Palm Beach County had one of the lowest conviction rates for adults in Florida when he assumed office, while being among the state's leaders in prosecuting juveniles as adults.

"Those numbers have moved in different directions," he said. "That was a priority in the office, to treat juveniles appropriately. If it's a violent crime we have, we will file adult charges. But if it's a drug crime or other nonviolent crimes with a juvenile who is not a career criminal, we're going to file juvenile charges."

His team also has prosecuted several high-profile cases, including the conviction of former Palm Beach Gardens police officer Nouman Raja in the 2015 shooting death of stranded motorist Corey Jones on a I-95 exit ramp.

In 2019, Raja became the first Florida police officer in three decades to be convicted in connection with an on-duty shooting. His conviction came after an accidental audio recording of the shooting disproved his claims that Jones came after him with a gun.

"I think that showed our goal has always been equal justice under the law," Aronberg said.

In another high-profile case, the state attorney's office recently reached a plea agreement with Sheila Keen-Warren in the 1990 Wellington "clown" murder case that was the subject of a two-hour documentary on ABC's "20/20" news magazine program. Keen-Warren pleaded guilty to killing Marlene Warren in a case made complex by issues with evidence and the number of years it took to bring the matter to trial.

Prosecutors also secured the county's first death sentence for a person convicted of murder since 2002 when a jury in 2020 voted to impose the penalty on Marlin Joseph for a double homicide in West Palm Beach.

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Some contentious moments marked time in office

Aronberg's tenure has not been without contention. His 2012 campaign for the office was marked by reports that he led an effort to discredit Michael McAuliffe, the incumbent who ultimately chose not to seek re-election, and to keep Circuit Judge Krista Marx from seeking the post.

Marx, who was later to become Palm Beach County's chief judge, told The Post in 2012 that a lobbyist and close friend told her a judicial ethics complaint would be filed against her if she ran. It would allege she used her work phone to solicit lawyers for campaign contributions, a violation of judicial canons.

“I unequivocally did not engage in such behavior,” she said at the time.

Aronberg’s campaign was preparing a public records request for her phone logs and other records.  He emailed a copy of the records to an associate to discuss, The Post found. Two days after she was threatened, Marx announced she would not be running to succeed McAuliffe.

Aronberg at the time dismissed the reported threat as “anonymous hearsay.” He added, “It didn’t come from me and I didn’t know about it.”

In 2019, attorneys for him and The Palm Beach Post were engaged in a legal battle over transcripts from a 2006 grand jury that came up with the first criminal charge against disgraced financier and serial child molester Jeffrey Epstein. The Post sued Aronberg and Clerk of Court Joe Abruzzo in their official capacities in an effort to gain access to the sealed records to see why only a solicitation of prostitution charge, nothing involving children, emerged.

Circuit Judge Donald Hafele in December 2021 denied The Post’s efforts to make the transcripts public, saying the newspaper had “strong arguments” but that state law bound him to keep them secret. The 4th District Court of Appeal reversed the decision in May, clearing the way for a trial court judge to review the transcripts and determine whether their release would further justice for Epstein's victims.

Aronberg initially opposed the release of the Epstein grand jury transcripts but later adopted a neutral position. The Post dropped him from the suit once he changed his position on the newspaper obtaining the transcripts on behalf of the public in furtherance of justice.

In a court hearing last September, Aronberg sought to have The Post pay $71,000 in fees to attorneys hired to defend the state attorney's office. Although the Epstein grand jury was convened under a previous state attorney, Aronberg argued that the lawsuit was filed in an effort to embarrass him and described it as frivolous.

A judge in February ruled that The Post would not face sanctions nor have to pay attorneys fees for naming Aronberg in its lawsuit.

For subscribers: Appeals court won't release deposition from Dave Aronberg's ex-wife in Glenn Straub case

In August 2022, attorneys for Wellington developer Glenn Straub sought the disclosure of a deposition by Aronberg's ex-wife, Lynn. The motion was denied, as was a subsequent appeal.

Straub faces charges of grand theft and filing false liens in a case against an ex-girlfriend, an investigation his attorneys say Aronberg orchestrated. He and his wife were close friends with the woman, Jessica Nicodemo, who claimed Straub filed the liens against her two homes to punish her for breaking up with him.

The Broward County State Attorney's Office handled the case, and Aronberg through a spokesman reiterated that he had no involvement in either the investigation or the prosecution of Straub. The developer has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is awaiting trial.

Lerman files to run for office as Aronberg ponders next steps

Aronberg said he intends to serve the remainder of his current term. He said that he will be exploring other opportunities when he leaves office, but did not specify his future plans. He is 52 years old.

Lerman filed to run for state attorney in May. He said he filed with the expectation that Aronberg would not seek another term. He will formally announce his candidacy at a news conference outside the state attorney's office in West Palm Beach on Wednesday.

"I think he's run a good office," Lerman said of Aronberg's tenure.

"He has a lot of great assistant state attorneys that he's hired over the years. Compared to other state attorney's offices in the state, I think this probably one of the best and that certainly has happened under his leadership and his tenure."

Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg won't seek fourth term