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TAMPA-- “At some point if you do enough to the powers that be, they’re going to stop you”.
Those
words were spoken in August by Craig Huffman, attorney for former
federal prosecutor Jeffrey Del Fuoco, 52, who resigned as assistant
U.S. attorney in Tampa effective Aug. 1.
This
week, Del Fuoco was hit with a $167,000 sanction by U.S. Magistrate
Thomas Wilson after Manatee County sheriff Charles Wells filed a
complaint claiming that Del Fuoco had asked for $500,000 to settle a
lawsuit that he had brought against Wells in return for not filing a
complaint against Wells for alleged election violations.
Del
Fuoco had sued Wells in February 2003, saying that he had run Del
Fuoco’s license plate number through a database. Del Fuoco said
that Wells was acting in retaliation because Del Fuoco had been
conducting a corruption investigation involving his department. The
former prosecutor had also accused Wells of stalking him and his
family.
Wells
contended that he felt like he was being blackmailed into settling a
lawsuit. Del Fuoco said that he didn’t recall asking Wells for a
half million dollars and said he had hoped that by alerting Wells to
the alleged violations that he would take care of them himself.
Del Fuoco did dismiss Wells from the lawsuit and filed a campaign complaint against the sheriff which was dismissed.
In
his decision, the judge said that “there was no discussion of the
underlying lawsuit, and its settlement depended entirely upon the
sheriff paying $500,000 plus an attorney’s fee in order to have
Del Fuoco remain silent about the alleged campaign violations”.
He said Del Fuoco acted in “bad faith” and denied Del
Fuoco’s counterclaim against Wells.
Del Fuoco said he would appeal.
As a
federal prosecutor, Del Fuoco obtained convictions of six Manatee
County sheriff’s deputies and three Plant City police on
corruption charges, all in connection with drug cases, allegedly
stealing money from drug dealers and innocent motorists, telling them
they would be deported if they didn’t give them money.
In
announcing his resignation, Del Fuoco had said that it was “time
to punch out. I did a good job with two hands tied behind my back. When
you play hard, people are either going to love you or hate you.
It’s the only way I know how to do it”.
He had been with the Justice Department since 1990. 9-23-05
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