Other than Donald Trump himself, no one has complained louder about former president’s indictments than Florida’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis.
“We are seeing our justice system and our court system weaponized by the left,” Patronis said in a Newsmax interview about his plan — which the governor rejected — to spend $5 million in taxpayer money for Trump’s legal defense.
But Patronis has no business criticizing other prosecutions.
His Cabinet agency should have taken no for an answer when the Miami-Dade state attorney decided against prosecuting anyone for a so-called “Tooth Fairy Heist.” Instead, the CFO kept shopping for someone who would do it, unfairly prolonging the ordeal of those targeted and raising serious questions of political favoritism and conflicts of interest.
No case, four agencies say
By now, three other state entities have also passed on it, including the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, her office of statewide prosecution and the state attorney in Gainesville.
That should end it. But questions persist.
Among them: Did $52,000 in political contributions to Patronis’ PAC buy his persistence? His deputy denies it. And why did he hype the case as a $1.3 million “fraud” when nothing was stolen? The question here was whether the billing process was improper.
No money went missing. No one was paid for anything they didn’t do or for dental services for which the patients, who were children on Medicaid, weren’t entitled. None of the work was improperly supervised, according to Miami-Dade prosecutors.
Insurance companies that pay Medicaid claims for the state were billed using the registration number of a dentist who was forced out of the company, and an insurance carrier reported the claims as potential fraud. That became an issue in complex civil litigation over who should own the dental practice.
Charges were dropped
But criminal charges against five employees who had been arrested and publicly shamed were dropped. Miami-Dade prosecutor Michael Spivack concluded that they should not be prosecuted because he did not believe a jury would convict them.
That should’ve been the end of it.
Some background is in order. Dr. Jose Mellado, a Coral Gables periodontist, and his wife, Dr. Ania Cabrerizo, a pediatric dentist, sold their practices to a company, APCDO Management Inc., which retained them to run the business as One Care Pediatric Dental. They were later fired. APCDO retained Dr. Howard Fetner, a Jacksonville dentist, to manage the practice. Mellado and Cabrerizo are suing APCDO and Fetner to recover what they sold.
Patronis’ office then referred the case to the statewide prosecutor, an arm of the attorney general, which concluded that it lacked jurisdiction. It noted that Florida’s speedy trial deadline had passed on the five accused employees, making it impossible to prosecute them. The target was Fetner, whose patients include Melissa Nelson, the state attorney in Jacksonville.
When Nelson received a complaint against Fetner, she disqualified herself and referred it to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed Brian Kramer, the Gainesville-area state attorney, to look into it.
Kramer, too, declined to pursue it. Reiterating what the statewide prosecutor had said, Kramer said there were “clearly valid reasons to decline prosecution on the merits” and that further investigation of Fetner “would be unjust.”
Reputations smeared
At long last, this weaponization of state government should have ended. It hasn’t. The five employees were left with smeared reputations and legal bills to pay. And the Florida Board of Dentistry has opened — but seems in no hurry to conclude — an investigation of Fetner that could potentially cost him his license and livelihood. Notably, the board’s chair is one of Fetner’s antagonists in the civil case, Mellado, a DeSantis appointee.
Mellado gave $2,000 to Patronis’ political committee, Treasure Florida, on the same day in 2022 as a $50,000 gift from Barbara Feingold of Delray Beach, a close friend of Mellado’s — the largest personal contribution to his political fund that year. Earlier, Feingold and her late husband, Jeffrey Feingold, gave $75,000 to Patronis’ PC through their MCNA Health Care Holdings.
Feingold is also a trustee at Florida Atlantic University and wants a dental school established there. Feingold and Mellado have served together on the FAU presidential search committee.
Patronis’ investigation began about three months after the latest contributions were reported on Sept. 2, 2022.
An attorney for Mellado said his contribution had “nothing to do” with the civil case or any investigation of Fetner. But with the dental board’s sword hovering over Fetner, the Agency for Health Care Administration, which answers to the governor, has suspended payments to One Care Pediatric Dental.
Don’t drag this out
The Board of Dentistry that Mellado chairs has a moral and legal obligation to conclude an investigation expeditiously, lest it appear that it’s abusing its power for private purposes.
Feingold and her husband have been major contributors to DeSantis’ campaigns, but not to Patronis, other than the $50,000 she gave to his political committee.
“My support for the CFO is directly connected to his great service to the people of Florida and nothing else,” Feingold said in a statement. “Any suggestion otherwise is inflammatory and untrue.”
The remaining issue is whether Patronis abused the power of his office to benefit a contributor who was in a bitter civil suit with Fenter.
According to Julie Jones, his deputy chief financial officer, the office’s criminal investigation decision “had additional potential violations outside of the Miami-Dade jurisdiction that merited review.”
It was “ridiculous and not true” to link it to contributions, Jones said. “The decision to pursue this case was made by the Division of Criminal Investigation chain of command. The CFO was not consulted or involved,” she said.
The buck stops with Patronis. He should prepare to explain to voters how he would use the greater police powers of the governor’s office. After all, he’s an undeclared candidate for governor in 2026.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
