From The Miami Herald
02/16/2015
Former South Beach resident Sean Casey built a career on promoting the freedom of journalists across Latin America.
And when he mowed down an elderly woman in a drunk-driving wreck in 2001, Casey and supporters cited press freedom in calling for the courts to unveil evidence they insisted showed that he’d been unfairly convicted.
His efforts failed, Casey is still waging a legal battle — but this time, to hide evidence of his crime from the public.
As he nears his release from state prison, Casey is asking a judge to seal all court records detailing his conviction for DUI manslaughter, so he can again travel freely abroad once released.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office called his request “absurd and “legal chutzpah.”
“He claims he wants to continue his career as a journalist to assist other countries to develop a strong, free and independent press,” prosecutors Penny Brill and Gail Levine wrote in a response, “but yet he wants to hide public information, something that should be abhorrent to any real journalist.”
Said defense attorney David S. Markus: “This request is about redemption. He served a long prison sentence. He’d like a second chance to go on with his career and his life.”
A Miami-Dade judge will consider the request, the latest twist in legal theater that has drawn out for more than a decade.
In March 2001, Casey plowed his BMW into 71-year-old Mary Montgomery as she crossed the street carrying a bag of groceries in Miami Beach. She died. Police officers immediately arrested Casey, then 27, after finding his damaged car parked at his South Beach apartment.
At the time, he worked as a projects administrator….MORE
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