U.S. Attorney's Office remains vigilant as world events raise threat of violence

Since Hamas' deadly attack on Israel Oct. 7 and the subsequent war, Markenzy Lapointe, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has expanded efforts to combat hate crimes and threats of violence on the Treasure Coast and throughout his nine-county jurisdiction.

It’s part of a directive from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to all 94 U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the FBI to be in close touch with their state and local law enforcement allies “in the face of the potential threats of hate-fueled violence and terrorism.”

For Lapointe, 55, a U.S. Marine Gulf War veteran who in January was sworn in to serve as U.S. Attorney, it means remaining vigilant across a 15,197-square-mile district from Sebastian south to Key West and west to Sebring.

And that’s on top of ongoing enforcements to stamp out drug trafficking - especially fentanyl and methamphetamine – illegal firearms offenses, human smuggling, financial and elder fraud, environmental crimes, national security threats, and more.

“When I first came in here … we were talking about civil rights, domestic terrorism,” Lapointe said in November. “But some of the things we've been seeing that has been going on with us … we are concerned, and this is broadly.”

During an Oct. 19 meeting in Miami, Garland told Lapointe and other law enforcement leaders they’re seeing “an increase in reported threats against faith communities,” Garland said, “particularly Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions.”

To that end, just days later Fort Lauderdale police on Oct. 24 arrested Kenneth Pinkney, 47, of Wilton Manors, who is accused of punching a U.S. Postal Service worker in the face and ripping off her hijab.

Shifting priorities

The first Haitian-born American lawyer to serve as U.S. Attorney, Lapointe was nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U. S. Senate in December 2022. His legal career has included serving as a law clerk to Florida Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead and working as a federal prosecutor in Miami. He shifted to civil litigation and by 2017, he was a law partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, in Miami.

Now, as the chief federal law enforcement officer for a district with 7 million people, Lapointe oversees offices in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce.

He initially believed the fentanyl crisis he called “a scourge on the country” and violent crime would be top of mind. Events in the Middle East, though, quickly became a top concern, he said.

Still, federal prosecutors, including at the Fort Pierce division of Highlands, Okeechobee, Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties, remain focused on stopping violent offenders, Lapointe said.

“Violent crime is always going to be an important priority for us,” he said. “Because even in communities like the Treasure Coast, you still have those types of crimes.”

Treasure Coast-based federal officials also are spending time and resources investigating the circumstances that precipitate drug overdose deaths.

“I can’t speak to particular investigations,” Lapointe said, “but we want to go after those people where we can find a connection between the trafficking of fentanyl in an actual overdose death.”

That’s included the July arrest of Keyon Lewis, 26, of Vero Beach, after a federal grand jury in Fort Pierce returned an indictment of distribution of a substance containing fentanyl, the use of which resulted in a death; and possession with intent to distribute a substance containing fentanyl.

Lewis, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused in November 2021 of distributing fentanyl to a man in a Vero Beach parking lot, and officials alleged it killed him.

Gun crimes, too, get a lot of their attention, Lapointe said.

Federal investigators often trace weapons and ammunition to better target violent repeat offenders.

“Those are the people that, on the federal side, we want to be able to go after,” he said.

Reflecting the community

Fluent in Creole, French and English, Lapointe grew up in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince until age 16 when he emigrated to the United States to be with his single mother and siblings.

He lived in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood and attended MiamiDade College. He put his studies aside in 1990 after he was called up as a reservist by the Marines when the Persian Gulf War erupted. Lapointe told the Miami Herald he served six years as a reservist and left the Marines as a corporal.

He earned a finance degree from Florida State University and in 1999 he received a Juris Doctor degree from FSU College of Law.

As the first Haitian-born lawyer appointed as a U.S. Attorney, Lapointe said he recognizes the importance of diversity to reflect the communities his offices serve - and the challenges that presents.

“Diversity and inclusion is not easy … It is important for us to include all members of our communities - in the fabric of our economy, the fabric of our politics and our society,” he said. “But that's easier said than done … You have to go out and find the people to reflect that.”

A “perfect example” of that, he noted, is Assistant U.S. Attorney Carmen Lineberger, who in 2008 joined the U.S. Southern District, and in 2020 became the first Black woman appointed to supervise the Fort Pierce office.

“I'm very, very proud of the work she does. And she believes in the things that I believe, as well,” Lapointe said. “We constantly have to push for that. Because let's face it, we have a number of communities who forever have felt that they haven't been part of the decision-making process.”

Here’s some of the cases prosecuted this year in the Fort Piece division:

∎In October, Marques Deon Jones, 40, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for convictions related to pistol-whipping his girlfriend, an employee of a Port St. Lucie group home, and forced her to leave with him in her vehicle. After a group home supervisor notified police, U.S. Marshals apprehended Jones, who grabbed a gun and attempted to flee.

∎In August, two men received federal prison terms for producing child sexual abuse material out of Inkboyz, a Port St. Lucie tattoo shop, and other crimes. Dustin Singleton, 43, of Hobe Sound, was ordered to serve 40 years after he pled guilty to three counts of producing child sexual abuse material, distribution of methamphetamine, and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Elijah Daniel Shaw, 22, of Port St Lucie, was sentenced to nearly 22 years after pleading guilty to producing and possessing child sexual abuse material.

∎In June, Dominican native Carlos Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 48, was ordered to serve about two years in federal prison for convictions related to a Feb. 22 smuggling incident in which authorities in Martin County seized a yacht with 78 undocumented migrants aboard.

The Bahamian boat captain, Raymond Saunders was sentenced to seven years after a jury convicted him of seven felonies.

∎In May 2023, Xavier Daughtry, 25, of Fort Pierce received a 13-year federal prison term after being convicted by a jury of carjacking and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Records show Fort Pierce police received a 911 call from a woman who had a gun pointed in her face by Daughtry after she parked her car at a gas station on U.S. 1. Daughtry got inside the vehicle and fled; he was later found with a loaded .45 semi-automatic handgun.

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Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms," a true-crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com. If you are a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest local news on the Treasure Coast.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Violent crimes, fentanyl crisis priorities for U.S. Attorney's Office