ORLANDO, Fla. — Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell warned Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Wednesday to stop trying to “manufacture a pretext for my removal,” sending unusual letters to him and to Gov. Ron DeSantis that urged the Republican leaders to “set aside the political theater.”

In the 10 months since Worrell began her second term, Uthmeier has repeatedly lambasted her office’s policies and decisions. The public attacks, which Worrell has countered with defenses of her work, have left her supporters fearful that DeSantis, who removed her from office in 2023, would do so again and was using his hand-picked attorney general to lay out a case against her.

“It is clear that your campaign of misinformation and intimidation seeks to manufacture a pretext for my removal,” Worrell wrote to Uthmeier. “The people of this circuit elected me twice to administer justice without fear or favor, and I will continue to do exactly that.”

The letters to Uthmeier and DeSantis, obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, describe Uthmeier’s colorful criticisms of the embattled state attorney — “soft on crime,” a “Soros-backed prosecutor” and “a threat to public safety” — as “defamatory and dangerous.”

The letter to DeSantis written by attorney Jon May, whom Worrell retained in the event of a suspension, went further. “These false and misleading statements also compromise the safety of Ms. Worrell and SAO’s staff, and the ability of the SAO to fulfill its mission to protect the public and prosecute those who commit crimes,” it said.

Worrell had previously brushed off worries that DeSantis might suspend her again, but the letters show she now views such action as a serious possibility. In August 2023, DeSantis suspended Worrell, who was then two years into her first term, for alleged incompetence and neglect of duty, claims she vigorously denied. DeSantis tapped Andrew Bain to replace her, and Worrell then easily defeated him in November, returning to office in early 2025.

The Orlando Sentinel has contacted spokespeople for DeSantis and Uthmeier and is waiting on any comments they might have on Worrell’s letters.

DeSantis’ 2023 complaints about Worrell included claims by local law enforcement leaders that she wasn’t aggressively prosecuting crimes like drug trafficking and was being lenient with young offenders.

But a Sentinel analysis later found that many of those claims about drug trafficking cases brought by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office were dubious. Some of the cases Worrell’s offices was alleged to have abandoned were still ongoing, and some that had been dropped or downgraded were hampered by investigative issues created by deputies.

Uthmeier has attacked her this year on similar grounds, complaining, for example, that she failed to prosecute a man accused of masturbating in an Apopka park.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld Worrell’s suspension, affirming the governor’s broad power to remove elected officials but failing to weigh in on the merits of the decision. Worrell blasted the court for having “rubber-stamped a political stunt.”

In her letter to Uthmeier, she claimed his use of phrases like “malfeasance” and “neglect of duty” to describe her actions in office was an effort to bolster a new case against her.

While Uthmeier doesn’t have the power to decide whether Worrell stays in office, he is a close ally of the governor, whose hard-line opposition to Worrell is in line with the attorney general’s.

The letter cites six cases highlighted by Uthmeier as examples of misconduct by her office and challenges the attorney general’s views of them.

One of the cases is the prosecution of Tina Allgeo, whose motion to dismiss her second-degree murder charge in a road rage shooting case will be heard this month. Allgeo argues she acted in self-defense under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Uthmeier, in video posted to social media, called on Worrell to drop the case entirely ahead of the hearing, which drew the state attorney’s ire. Allgeo’s lawyer, Mark O’Mara denied asking the attorney general to intervene.

Worrell, who said Uthmeier’s demand is based on his “personal and uninformed views” of the case, noted the shooting stemmed from Allgeo sideswiping the victim’s car and said that the merits of her self-defense claim would need to be decided by a judge.

In the long-running case of Tommy Zeigler, who is appealing his conviction for the 1975 murders of his wife and three others, Uthmeier took umbrage at what he said was Worrell’s inability to hire an expert witness to counter Zeigler’s claims that new DNA evidence exonerated him. She countered in the letter that “the only unresolved issue” was which state entity would pay the cost of retaining that witness. Worrell has said she does not believe the new evidence exonerates Zeigler.

Three other cases cited in the letter involved sex crimes. One involved the man accused of masturbating in a park in Apopka, which Worrell’s office declined to prosecute because, she said, the children in the park did not witness the act, which is required to convict for lewd and lascivious exhibition.

Another pertained to a man arrested for possessing child sexual abuse material, which took place before Worrell’s time in office and remains ongoing after being referred to the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is under Uthmeier’s purview.

A third case involved a man accused of molesting a child that Uthmeier said resulted in “just 15 years of probation,” a claim that Worrell countered by saying the probation includes “strict supervision, lifetime registration, GPS monitoring, mandatory treatment and zero contact with minors — conditions that keep him under state control for life.”

Finally, Worrell addressed the case of a man with mental health issues and no prior criminal history, who pleaded guilty and received a 10-year prison sentence followed by five years' probation for attempted second-degree murder. That outcome, the letter noted, was “contemplated and approved” by Bain.

She also cited three attempted murder cases handled by Bain, which were similar to the one Uthmeier complained about and that she said received similar or lighter sentences without public criticism.

“The disparity in your response makes clear that your outrage to prosecutorial decisions in this office is not about the sentence — it is about the person under whose administration it was issued,” Worrell said. “To portray this lawful, proportionate resolution of this case as leniency toward an “attempted murder” is a deliberate distortion of both fact and law.”

_____

©2025 Orlando Sentinel. Visit orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.