Deficiencies in state search warrant cited by feds in dropping case against Miami doctor

Miami Herald

18-02-2025

Serious mistakes by the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office led to the dismissal Tuesday of federal narcotics charges against Dr. Jeffrey Kamlet, a Miami addiction doctor accused of sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl found hiding in his closet with another teenager in 2022.
In a court filing last week, Kamlet's attorney, Jayne Weintraub, seized on several errors made in drafting the search warrants, among them, an obvious 'cut and paste' job by the investigator for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's Human Trafficking Task Force.
The dismissal of the federal drug charges is another stunning embarrassment for Rundle, whose office has come under scrutiny after years of sloppy prosecutions that has led to similar dismissals, as well as resignations of top lawyers in her office.
The Miami Herald was unsuccessful in obtaining a comment from Rundle or the U.S. Prosecutor's office.
Kamlet, 69, a renowned addiction doctor who has treated some of South Florida's most prominent people, had already beaten the state's sex trafficking case, which was brought by Rundle in 2023. Twelve state charges were dropped after the victim was found dead, floating in the Little River Canal just weeks before she was scheduled to testify against Kamlet.
The girl's mother, who asked not to be identified because she believes her daughter was murdered, said it's shameful police and prosecutors failed to do their jobs.
'From the day they found her in his apartment, everything was swept under the rug,' she said.
The case was part of a recent Miami Herald investigation, 'Dr. Feelgood,' which detailed the numerous errors by both Miami Beach police and Rundle's office. The story also revealed that Kamlet was able to expunge three prior criminal arrests, including one for cocaine possession while he was a licensed doctor who treated patients with addiction problems.
Kamlet told the Herald that he met the two girls on the dating app Tinder. He contends that they told him they were 18. He and his lawyer have characterized the two girls, one 17, the other 16, as drug addicts and prostitutes who entrapped him. Kamlet denied that he had sex with or gave the girls drugs.
The 17-year-old alleged that Kamlet had given her pure Colombian cocaine, then showed her his collection of high-powered weapons and dozens of bottles of pills he kept in his safe. He then handcuffed her to his bed and had sex with her. In another incident, he made her watch a porn video, told her he could get her into pornography and later, in a text message, told her that he would take care of her if they had chemistry and she stopped using drugs.
She was admitted to a drug treatment facility in late 2022. When she returned home, she told her mother she intended to testify against him in his upcoming trial and her mother begged her not to.
'I said to her, 'don't do it,' don't say anything to them, our lives are in jeopardy here by talking to the police about someone like him…I told her that people with money and power don't get in trouble.'
Three months later, she was dead. The medical examiner ruled her death as 'undetermined.' Miami-Dade police are investigating, but there's no evidence the probe is active.
After her death, the FBI stepped in, filing federal drug charges against Kamlet, based on the cache of pills and other forms of powdered and liquid drugs found in his apartment -- pursuant to the state's search warrant. At least one of the drugs found in a safe in his condo was banned in the U.S.
At the same time, federal prosecutors seized Kamlet's computers, telling a judge that they were investigating him on child pornography charges.
Ultimately, prosecutors couldn't overcome the deficiencies in the search warrant and never filed additional charges.
'We were able to show the government that Dr. Kamlet possessed the controlled substances for legitimate medical purposes in the course of his practice,' said his lawyer, Weintraub, on Tuesday.
The court filings however, tell a different story. Weintraub focused on the holes in the search warrant as well as the credibility of the victim.
Probably the most damning revelation she found was that the investigator failed to remove references in the search warrant that had nothing to do with Kamlet's case.
Frank Casanovas, who has since resigned from Rundle's office, apparently cut and pasted the language from another sex trafficking warrant into Kamlet's search warrant, but didn't delete references to the agencies involved in the other case. Aventura police, for example, was highlighted in the language, but Kamlet's case wasn't handled by Aventura police.
'Notably, because it was cut and pasted, there was no mention of the Miami Beach police who were essential to serve and execute the warrant at the defendant's address,' Weintraub wrote in her filing.
Federal prosecutors conceded there were 'numerous shortcomings' in the search warrant, calling it an example of poor 'draftsmanship.' But prosecutors nevertheless argued that Casanovas was operating in good faith and any errors were nothing more than an oversight.
Kamlet's arrest warrant was signed by the chief of Rundle's Human Trafficking unit, assistant state attorney Brenda Mezick. It's not clear whether Mezick signed off on the search warrants.
It's not the first mistake by Rundle's sex trafficking unit, which handled another recent probe involving allegations that a Key Biscayne gymnastics coach had inappropriately touched one of his students. The unit, which reviewed the allegations, declined to investigate. Had they looked deeper, they would have found that two other students, ages 4 and 7, also filed similar complaints to police.
Of the 638,872 criminal charges in the past 10 years in Miami-Dade County, the overwhelming majority — 71% — were dropped, abandoned or otherwise not prosecuted, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Statewide, that figure was 39%.
Staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this story.