The Abramoff/Kidan/ Boulis murder case: What no-one's talking about

The Sun-Sentinel's coverage of the Gus Boulis case includes this noteworthy paragraph:

The Broward County State Attorney's Office stated in court documents that it does not intend to issue subpoenas to either Kidan or Abramoff in the Boulis case.

Granted, I've never worked in a prosecutor's office. Even so, this statement reads like a rather sweeping before-the-fact exoneration. Especially in light of the fact that cash went from Kidan to the suspected hit-dudes -- not to mention the payments Sun Cruz gave Ohio representative Bob Ney, who went on to say nasty things about Boulis in the Congressional Record.

If nothing else, Kidan and Abramoff had gone out of their way to establish themselves as Boulis enemies. So who gave them a get-out-of-jail card?

The State Attorney in Broward County is Michael Satz. If you want to get up to speed on Satz, you may want to check out this 2004 New Times story by Bob Norman. Here's the sub-head: "Broward's top prosecutor loves to protect corrupt public officials."

Yikes! That doesn't sound very encouraging.

Norman calls the top lawman "Michael Sitz," since he sits on cases -- or so sayeth Norman.

The numbers on Sitz speak for themselves: He's successfully prosecuted only two elected officials in Broward during 27 years on the job. It's been more than four years, or a full term in office, since he even charged one -- and that was former County Commissioner Scott Cowan in a case first worked up by the Florida Elections Commission. Even there, Sitz went easy, giving Cowan a break by charging him with misdemeanor offenses rather than felonies.

To put Sitz's futility in perspective, look at Miami-Dade County, where they take the subject a little more seriously. Their state attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, has also been criticized for being soft on public corruption, yet she's filed criminal charges against numerous public officials in recent years, including four out the last five county commissioners to leave office. In addition to that, a special Office of Inspector General has led to more than 100 corruption arrests in six years. Oh, and it has a 100 percent success rate.

After detailing one primo example of "Sitz-Krieg" involving the lab director of a city water department, Norman summarizes:

This is classic Sitz. Spend taxpayer money on an investigation, fail to file charges, and act like you've done a public service by repeating what other investigations have already found. Bravo, boys, bravo.

And the fun is just beginning. The State Attorney's Office is sitzing on two corruption investigations right now that blow the Weber case out of the (chlorine-deficient) water. One involves North Broward Hospital District board member Dorsey Miller. Former FBI agent and current nonprosecutor John Hanlon has been working on that for months. Why so long? It takes tremendous contemplation to figure out an excuse not to file charges. Miller has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Miami-based firm called American Medical Depot, and he helped steer millions in business to the company.

Then you have the Hollywood sewage scandal in which Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom and his law partner, mayoral son Stacey Giulianti, stand to profit from a company the commissioner helped win a contract with his city.

Just the fact that Miller and Wasserstrom would take money from these companies shows how morally bankrupt Broward's political class has become under Sitz's laissez faire approach to corruption.

A lot of lefties are hoping the Boulis case will shine a spotlight on Abramoff and Kidan.

Think again. "Sitz" ain't no Fitz.