Cops: Judge’s son hit three cars before June DUI arrest

While the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office recused itself from a case involving a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge accused of attacking with a metal pole a pickup truck parked in front of her Key Largo home in June, Keys prosecutors appear to be handling her son’s DUI case that led to his mom’s legal woes.

Judge Victoria Brennan has had a never-served warrant out for her arrest on a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge for almost two months stemming from a June 28 incident where she allegedly battered a Homestead man’s Chevy pickup with the pole. The day before, her 17-year-old son was arrested on charges of driving under the influence and DUI with property damage — as well as felony drug charges being handled in juvenile court.

Brennan, who lives in Miami-Dade but has a home in Key Largo, came to the Keys on June 28 to deal with her son’s case. She reportedly became enraged when his friends were drinking at her Point Pleasant Drive house and bashed one of their vehicles with the pole as they were leaving.

Daniel Lurvey, the attorney for both Brennan and her son, declined to comment on either case. Monroe County State Attorney Catherine Vogel, for still unexplained reasons, “disqualified” her prosecutors from handling Judge Brennan’s case, but court records show Monroe prosecutors are handling her son’s case. At press time, Vogel said she was checking if she could make public why she asked the governor’s office to appoint another county’s prosecutors to the Victoria Brennan case.

According to a Florida Highway Patrol probable-cause affidavit, Brennan’s son crashed his 2015 BMW into the back of a Volkswagen Jetta on June 27 around 10:30 p.m., causing that car to crash into a fence on Arbor Lane on the northbound side of U.S. 1 at mile marker 92. The teen kept driving and his car hit a parked Honda Civic in the lot of Pino Windows, less than a mile from the original collision.

The younger Brennan kept driving until his BMW crashed into a parked Mitsubishi Eclipse on Oleander Drive, the side road just north of Pino Windows. The disabled cars blocked the entrance of Oleander. An 18-year-old woman ran out of the car and was caught by an off-duty Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer.

The Reporter/Keynoter is not naming the lady because it’s not clear from court records if she was arrested. According to the FHP report, police found a fake Florida driver’s license in her purse, along with her real ID.

An unnamed male was in the backseat of the car and also fled. He apparently got away. But Brennan’s son did not.

Two Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies had to force the “extremely intoxicated and very aggressive” teen into the back of a patrol car. FHP Sgt. Pedro Reinoso wrote in his report that the teen was “very unstable, aggressive, vulgar and extremely under the influence of drugs and alcohol.”

Reinoso asked the teen three times if he would submit to an alcohol breath test, and “he refused all three times.” When he was taken to county jail, the teen allegedly spit in the face of a deputy, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

Police found about 1.5 grams of loose marijuana on the BMW’s driver’s seat, passenger’s side floor board and the left rear passenger floor board. There was also a bottle with nine pills of dexmethylphenidate, a stimulant typically prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The woman in the car also told police Brennan’s son was consuming shots of New Amsterdam vodka.