The chief of staff under recently suspended Orlando state attorney Monique Worrell was fired last week while on maternity leave.
Keisha Mulfort, who served as chief of staff under Worrell, was notified of her termination on Thursday, one day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a press conference in Tallahassee suspending Worrell over allegations of “neglect of duty” and “incompetence.”
But Mulfort, who’s been in and out of the hospital due to complications from the recent birth of her daughter, wasn’t just notified of her termination over the phone or email.
Personnel from the Ninth Judicial District State Attorney’s Office, accompanied by two Orange County sheriff’s deputies, showed up to Mulfort’s door Thursday afternoon to deliver notice of her termination, effective last Wednesday. They also asked her to relinquish items related to her position, such as a cell phone and social media passwords.
Mulfort said she’d been nursing her 10-week-year-old daughter when they knocked on her door Thursday afternoon.
“I’m literally with my daughter right now,” Mulfort can be heard saying in OCSO body camera footage of the encounter obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
“Ma’am, I don’t believe that changes any facts of returning property,” a sheriff’s deputy, wearing the body camera, can be heard saying in response.
Mulfort, who was out on maternity leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act at the time of her termination, told SAO 9th personnel that they needed to contact her attorney.
“This is unacceptable,” said Mulfort in the video. “I am on FMLA and y’all are coming here like I’m a criminal,” she continued. “Regardless of what has happened at that office, regardless of what you have with Monique Worrell, I am on FMLA and y’all should have made arrangements. That would have been a respectful thing to do.”
Ryan Williams, an attorney who ran against Worrell for State Attorney in 2020, was appointed Chief Assistant Wednesday to serve under the leadership of Andrew Bain, a member of the conservative Federalist Society appointed by DeSantis to replace Worrell as head prosecutor for Orange and Osceola Counties.
Williams reportedly contacted Mulfort Wednesday, per the Sentinel, ahead of law enforcement showing up to her doorstep, to request the office’s social media passwords. In the body cam footage, Mulfort says those passwords had been changed last month, while she was on leave.
“My attorney contacted y’all this morning,” she adds, speaking to an office staffer on speaker phone, whose voice is blocked out in the released body cam footage. “Y’all could have contacted me in good faith and you did not. … He contacted you, and he contacted Ryan.”
The State Attorney’s Office defended its method of contact in a statement to local media Thursday.
“It is common practice of the State Attorney’s Office to communicate a separation of employment in person. In Ms. Mulfort’s case, attempts to communicate with her to notify her of her separation were unsuccessful,” the statement read. “The State Attorney’s Office followed its standard operating procedures to effectuate the separation process. The State Attorney thanks Ms. Mulfort for her public service.”
A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office told the Sentinel the sheriff was “not aware” that two of his deputies had been enlisted to accompany SAO personnel to Mulfort’s home, while confirming that their purpose in doing in doing so was solely to record the interaction on their body-worn camera.
“While it is not uncommon for deputies to provide standby services, this should have been handled exclusively by the sworn investigators at the State Attorney’s Office,” said OCSO spokesperson Michelle Guido.
Mulfort, on her personal X account (formerly known as Twitter), later blasted DeSantis Thursday evening for suspending her former boss, Worrell, describing the Republican governor and presidential hopeful as “Dictator DeSatan” and an “evil terrorist.”
DeSantis, who’s vying to make up ground in the polls amid a floundering presidential campaign, suspended Worrell, an elected public official, after months of speculation that he was planning to do such a thing, as a critic of her reformer approach to the criminal justice system.
The suspension came after Worrell was criticized by the Fraternal Order of Police, a law enforcement union, for a shooting involving two Orlando police officers earlier this month, perpetrated by a man who’d been released from jail in May on a $125,000 bond — something Worrell does not set, nor grant herself.
The DeSantis administration claimed Worrell’s record showed her office dismissed more cases than other state attorneys throughout Florida, and that the office under her leadership had a pattern of avoiding mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking and gun crimes. The administration also chided Worrell for allowing children accused of serious offenses “to evade incarceration when it would have been appropriate.”
Critics of the suspension have described the move as politically motivated and a subversion of democracy.
Data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement shows the overall crime rate in Orange County dropped 9% from 2020 to 2021. In Osceola County, the crime rate dropped 11% in that same period. Orlando police chief Eric Smith also shared recently that violent crime, including shootings, has decreased in downtown Orlando over the last year. Worrell was elected State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, with 66% support, in 2020.
Following her suspension, Worrell described DeSantis as a “weak dictator.” Members of the Orlando area community rallied in support of Worrell at Orlando City Hall on Thursday night.
Former State Attorney Andrew Warren of Hillsborough County was also suspended last year by DeSantis after he pledged not to prosecute those seeking or providing gender affirming care or an abortion. DeSantis appointed a “tough on crime” Republican to replace him.
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