Esperanzo Wilcox (above, 25) was arrested early Sunday morning by Boca PD. He faces several counts including burglary, three counts of battery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and false imprisonment.
Mr. Wilcox, a 2008 graduate of Spanish River High, was scheduled for a court appearance yesterday morning but the online court file has not been updated yet to show what happened. He is represented by the public defender and the Sheriff’s record indicates that he remains in custody at this writing, with total bond set at $19,000. His reported address is in the Boca Royal apartments (aka Boca Bayou) in southeast Boca. He may have attended Palm Beach State at some point. We found two different Facebook profiles, including the one pictured below, an another under the name Es Babbii. And he also looks like an aspiring rapper with at least a few clips on SoundCloud.
We found several cases for Mr. Wilcox in Palm Beach County including a drug felony from 2009 and a felony grand theft charge from 2008. He also had a drug case in Broward in 2009, but that may have been the same incident as the one from Palm Beach County.
We found another man with the same name but 20 years older that might be his father and a former football and basketball player at Boca High. Back in the early 1990s that man was arrested in Broward a few times on charges including attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm, soliciting to commit armed robbery, and drug charges.
Category: Crime
Follow-up on Attorney Fraud Arrest
Update: We received an additional document on the Meltzer case. See bottom.
We’ve been trying to follow up on the case where two West Boca attorneys were arrested on fraud charges. The Florida CFO issued a press release on the case shortly before Election Day. When we read through the details we were skeptical and we still are.
We managed to obtain the “probable cause affidavit” for Mr. Greenspoon, and you can see that document below. There is a case pending against him in Palm Beach County. The next appearance date is February 10th. Greenspoon is represented by Boca Raton attorney H. Dohn Williams, Jr.
The crux of the accusation against Greenspoon appears to be in this snippet from the above document:
Essentially the claim is that Greenspoon accepted a referral knowing that it came through someone who “illegally obtained” the accident information. However, it’s not at all clear that Greenspoon knew this was illegal. We did not know that, and we’re guessing most of our readers didn’t know it either.
We’re more disturbed by Greenspoon allegedly telling the client how often to visit the chiropractor and talking about how much money that will generate. But of course that’s not the illegal part. Welcome to Florida.
We also obtained the warrant and “complaint affidavit” for Mr. Meltzer from the State CFO’s office (below), but the affidavit is not really an affidavit. There’s no meaningful detail and it’s not signed.
Meltzer’s case is pending in Martin County, which is just north of Palm Beach County with its county seat in Stuart. The case was scheduled for an appearance last week but that was postponed until the end of March. Meltzer is represented by Miami defense attorney Jayne Weintraub.
We were able to reach the prosecutors (Lev Evans and Ryan Butler) in the Meltzer case. They indicated that the file is very large with over 1200 pages and nearly 70 CDs and DVDs. It does not make sense for us to pay the copying fees for all of that.
In Meltzer’s case the prosecutors declined to make any public comment. So far the Palm Beach County prosecutor has not responded to our request for a comment either and they probably will decline as well. Neither defense lawyer has responded to our inquiries.
Both Greenspoon and Meltzer are still listed on the Florida Bar website as eligible to practice law with no disciplinary history shown. Greenspoon’s law firm website is back up and running, and his profile closes with this description:
… Mr. Greenspoon focuses on business development, the day to day operations as well as managing the firm’s pre-suit personal injury department.
Of course all defendants are presumed innocent at this stage of the proceedings. People who feel like they have had an injustice against them or have been hurt in some way should contact an attorney to discuss their case, if you are unsure where to start and have never contacted a lawyer before, it is always best to look up lawyers in your area, an example of this would be searching ‘lawyers in springfield il‘ if your residency is in Illinois. Make sure you’re taking the right path for you and your case.
After we first published this article we received an additional document on the Meltzer case. It’s long and detailed and not pretty. Due to the document size we’ve split it into two, and left off the initial pages that are unnecessary.
The funny part (to us) is how they got caught. A detective and his wife were in an accident and his wife started receiving phone calls within a couple days. No matter how smart a scheme is, there’s always a way to screw it up.
Shoplifting and More at the Westwinds Publix
A reader tipped us off to an incident last night at Publix in the Westwinds plaza (Glades and 441). He noticed a couple of deputy vehicles as well as a paddy wagon:
We looked into it and found that a shoplifting incident was reported by PBSO on CrimeMapping.com:
We also found an arrest in the blotter that seems to fit with this incident, though we can’t say for sure.
Mr. Paul Pelchat was arrested last night and the time of booking (shortly before 10 pm) is reasonably close to the time that an arrest from a 6 pm incident would get to booking on Gun Club Road in West Palm Beach. Mr. Pelchat faces several charges including petit theft from a merchant, marijuana and trespassing:
Looking at his history in the court system we see a string of 18 mostly minor offenses and misdemeanors dating back to 2009, averaging roughly 3 per year. That doesn’t count the arrests he’s had for failing to appear. We can only see back one year and we see two of those. We also see a couple of minor incidents in Broward.
The latest blotter entry lists his address as 9966 Glades Road, which is not any building we can identify. It may refer to a spot just east of 441 where we often see vagrants gathering. Other arrests for Mr. Pelchat list his address as “at large.”
Repeat Felon Arrested: Boca Entrada
Nathan Yohannes-Mason (31) of Boca Entrada, or the Emerald Bay Club apartments, was arrested late Friday night on a felony drug charge along with a fake ID misdemeanor. Mr. Yohannes-Mason has a substantial history in South Florida courts, including two minor charges in Miami-Dade, two felonies in Broward along with multiple criminal traffic cases there, and four separate felony cases in Palm Beach County from 2000 to 2012.
Two of those Palm Beach felony cases involved firearms, and his 2008 Broward felony involved battery on law enforcement officers. As seems typical for South Florida, a number of these cases were dropped or reduced. His 2004 case included two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm but those were dropped by prosecutors and he got a year of probation for discharging a firearm in public. In 2005 he was accused of shooting into a building, adjudicated guilty and got a year in jail, minus substantial credit time.
The most recent Palm Beach felony, habitual driving on revoked license, was reduced to a minor driving without a valid license and a small fine.
Mr. Yohannes-Mason remains in custody at this writing awaiting $3000 bond.
Felony Battery: Knockout Takes Sean Downes Down
Update: We received a phone call from Mr. Downes’ grandmother (as well as a Facebook comment – see bottom of article). In the call she informed us that we have no right to publish such an article (First Amendment be damned) and that her grandson is a sweet kid. She also admitted that he was involved in the fight described in the affidavit, though she disputes some of the facts and had all kinds of negative things to say about the alleged victim and the witness. She then threatened to sue us, saying: “You’ll find out how much money you have.” Nice family.
Events at a West Palm Beach party in September has “Sean Downs” facing felony battery charges and his alleged victim left with permanent facial scarring and disfigurement. The Sheriff’s records indicate this Mr. Downs is a resident of The Oaks, a gated community on the north side of Clint Moore. As best we can tell this is actually Sean D. Downes. If we are correct (we’re pretty sure but you can never be positive), his father Sean P. Downes is CEO of Universal Holdings, Inc. who received an eye-popping $9.4 million last year in executive compensation according to BusinessWeek at only 44 years old.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the younger Downes was at a house party with a bunch of teens, running around looking for a fight. When the victim was leaving Downes confronted him to start a fight. The victim turned to leave and Downes then hit the victim in the left temple, knocking him out and to the ground. While the victim was unconscious on the ground, Downes continued punching him as many as ten times.
The victim woke up in the ER, had suffered four large bruises on his face, multiple cuts on the left side of his mouth requiring sutures and likely to leave substantial and permanent scars, and an additional injury on the back of his head where it hit the pavement.
West Palm Beach police referred the matter to the State Attorney, who waited over 3 months before filing this case in court in early January. Mr. Downes was booked Wednesday morning, minutes before his “first appearance” court session began and released a few hours later on $3000 bond. The timing suggests that he may have been represented by an attorney who surrendered him at the right time to make sure things moved smoothly. Court records do not yet indicate any attorney appearance, nor how the bond was posted.
The home address for the younger Downs listed in the blotter is owned by Lori Downes, who is divorced from the father. The 7-bedroom, 7000 square-foot house was purchased for $1.4M in 2013. The date of birth for the arrested Sean Downs matches this Sun-Sentinel article showing his birth in 1996 to parents Sean and Lori Downes.
A couple years ago Downes was an avid basketball player with the St. Thomas Aquinas school in Fort Lauderdale.
It’s unclear why but he’s no longer on the team roster. As always, anyone arrested is innocent until proven guilty.
Update: We found a highlight film from Downes’ freshman year on the St. Andrews varsity basketball team.