Monday, September 08, 2003
Miami Justice
Inside Track
Sparks Still Flying [from the Miami Daily Busienss Review. You can't make this up.]
September 08, 2003 By: Tony Doris
When Davie police Officer Mark Larghi spotted a Porsche Carrera going eastbound on I-595, sparks flying from the rims of its blown-out right-side tires, he pulled the driver over.
The man behind the wheel was Howard Neal Premer, former mayor of North Miami. According to Larghi’s incident report, Premer didn’t know what town he was in or what road he was on. He reeked of alcohol and had a hard time finding his license. But he refused a breath test.
“He stated he was the mayor of North Miami and could I forget the incident,” Larghi wrote in a report. According to the officer’s account, Premer admitted to drinking wine at the Trapeze Club, a swingers’ club on Commercial Boulevard.
“He continued to plead that he was the mayor of North Miami and started naming people,” Larghi wrote about the February incident. “When I asked him who he was naming, he said they were all police chiefs that he knew and helped obtain their position.”
Premer was arrested for driving under the influence and operating an unsafe vehicle; his license was suspended for refusing to submit to a breath, urine or alcohol test.
Premer’s defense attorney, Samuel S. Fields of Ruden McClosky Smith Schuster & Russell in Fort Lauderdale, complained to a state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle hearing officer that the license suspension should be dropped, since a back-up police officer on the scene, Jeffrey Arndt, missed two administrative hearings on the suspension.
On Aug. 11, the final arbiter in the case, Broward Circuit Judge Thomas M. Lynch IV, issued an order restoring Premer’s license.
According to court filings by the Davie Police Department, Arndt missed the first administrative hearing date because he wasn’t notified of it. The hearing notice was mistakenly placed in the file of his wife, also a Davie officer. A “lame-o excuse,” Fields argued to hearing officer Marcie Wyrobeck.
The second hearing wasn’t scheduled until after Arndt had left on an out-of-state vacation in July; it was held before he returned. His department notified the court several days in advance of the hearing that he wouldn’t be able to make it. “It’s highly suspicious,” Fields contended.
Hearing officer Wyrobeck disagreed with Fields’ argument at the second hearing that the absence of Officer Arndt represented a failure to appear. She suggested that Fields consent to a rescheduled hearing. Fields refused, saying that regulations don’t allow a hearing to be postponed twice.
The issue went up to Judge Lynch, who set aside Premer’s license suspension.
Jon Whitney, general counsel for the motor vehicles department in Tallahassee, said Wednesday that the judge’s order and case law left little room for an appeal.
Judge Lynch, Fields and Premer all declined to comment.
Premer, a businessman who sold radio station WKAT in 2000 for $7.8 million, isn’t off the hook yet. He still faces criminal DUI charges, to which he pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum sentence of six months in county jail and mandatory attendance at DUI school.
As it happens, Premer is chief executive of Improv Comedy Traffic Schools in Aventura. The company’s motto is, “Laff ‘n’ Learn with Us.” Unfortunately for Premer, the last “laff” would be on him, not on the company — it isn’t certified to offer DUI classes.
— Tony Doris
