By Brittany Wallman and Jon Burstein
Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — High-profile attorney Scott Rothstein, concerned about security since a friend and colleague was strangled in March 2008, is paying city police to guard his home 24 hours a day - a unique arrangement that could cost him almost $400,000 year.
“Until you’re in the position that someone close to you is murdered by someone else that you trusted, you don’t understand how it turns your life upside down,” Rothstein said. Rothstein has been paying to have a uniformed officer in a marked police car outside his home in a gated community since April.
The cost: $1,080 a day, $394,200 a year.
Officers often work special details for businesses, but Rothstein is the only private citizen in Fort Lauderdale to have round-the-clock police protection. Police Chief Frank Adderley said the Rothstein duty is within department policy, which requires that anyone hiring police be free of felonies, and of good moral character.
Criminal justice experts said Rothstein’s security detail is unusual. The Broward Sheriff’s Office, which patrols 14 cities and unincorporated areas, said deputies have temporarily guarded homes, but never on an ongoing basis like at Rothstein’s.
Mayor Jack Seiler first said he was concerned it could be perceived as personal bodyguarding, which is forbidden because it could give one person a special bond or lead to special treatment.
“I see the problem with the perception, and I see that it could look troubling to some people,” he said last week.
Seiler said he later met with city officials and concluded that Rothstein’s detail is by the book, and presents no problems. He said he has “tremendous” confidence the city officers’ “judgment would not be clouded by this detail.”
Rothstein said he has been wary since his close friend and colleague, Melissa Britt Lewis, 39, was strangled and her body found in a Plantation canal in March 2008. The man charged with her murder had been in Rothstein’s home many times.
“You can call me whatever you want,” Rothstein said. “You can call me paranoid; you can call me extra-security conscious. But at the end of the day, no one close to me is going to be killed, raped, attacked, harmed in any way so long as I have the ability to provide the extra protection.”
Police officers across the country moonlight in their off hours. Off-duty details are a benefit to the community, Seiler said, because taxpayers get more police officers on the streets without paying all their costs.
But one expert said not all details help the public. Rothstein’s home is in a community that already pays extra for an off-duty officer.
“I’ve heard of some unusual uses of off-duty police officers, and this would be in the unusual category,” said James R. Brunet, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, who published a study on off-duty details and how they should be used to maximize public benefits.
"[The public has paid] to train the officer, we have outfitted the officer and for the most part an officer in uniform ... is viewed as a public resource,” Brunet said. “If they are at wealthy areas where crime is absent, there is not much public benefit being derived by that. If the person is being seriously threatened, you can make the case for public benefit.”
Rothstein, 47, has catapulted into prominence in recent years, in the world of politics, business and philanthropy.
His law firm Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler grew from seven lawyers in 2002 to 62 by last year, becoming a legal powerhouse with former judges, former homicide prosecutors and former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne on staff. Rothstein is a trial lawyer specializing in labor and employment, but the firm handles all types of cases. He’s a major fundraiser for the Republican Party, hosting everyone from Sen. John McCain to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at his home.
The murder of Lewis last year shook him. He said he hired private bodyguards - he prefers to call them “executive protection"- immediately afterward, and still has them for his wife and daughter.
The man charged with murdering Lewis is Tony Villegas, a man Rothstein trusted and had in his home “50 to 100 times,” Rothstein said. Villegas was the estranged husband of another Rothstein employee, Debra Villegas, Lewis’ best friend. Tony Villegas is in jail without bond, facing the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
The tragedy “left a very, very bad scar,” Rothstein said, and taught him that “you can never be too security conscious.”
“What are material things worth if the people you love are not around you to enjoy them with you?” he asked.
He had hired private security well before the murder, for three months outside his home in summer 2005. He said that was in response to a work-related death threat.
In addition to the police guard at his house, Rothstein’s law firm spends at least $2,000 a week on its Fort Lauderdale police detail, and Bova Prime restaurant on Las Olas, which Rothstein co-owns, has a city police detail that runs at least $1,360 a week, according to figures from police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa, who has worked the detail at Rothstein’s house.
Businesses all over Broward County pay for off-duty police services, and a few private individuals hire a city officer for short-term jobs such as watching over a party, according to city records. Sometimes, there are more officers working off-duty details than being paid to patrol the streets, Sousa said.
Police officers are paid directly for their off-duty work, and the city receives no compensation. But if an officer on a detail takes action, like making an arrest, he or she goes on the city clock on overtime, the union contract dictates. Sousa said taxpayers pay for the gas to and from officers’ off-duty details, as well as during the job if the car sits idling. If an officer is hurt on an off-duty detail, the city’s workers compensation covers it as well, he said.
The same public policy issues pertain to all off-duty details, such as those outside nightclubs and restaurants.
Police and city officials make a distinction between guarding a location and guarding a person. Officers watch Rothstein’s house, and don’t travel with him or his family.
Police off-duty detail records show Rothstein pays $45 an hour for officers of any rank who guard his home. He said he plans to maintain the 24/7 detail for the rest of his life, as long as he can afford it.
“Whatever this is costing me, ... I’ll give up whatever it takes to make sure my family and my friends are safe,” he said.
Vice Mayor Bruce Roberts, the city’s former police chief, said over the years police have intensely guarded homes of other prominent people who felt endangered for some reason, for short periods of time.
“It’s really nothing illegal or inappropriate,” he said of Rothstein’s detail. “It is a little different, but he’s within his rights to ask for it.”
Copyright 2009 Sun-Sentinel