Parkland Shooter's Public Defenders Seek To Withdraw Because Cruz Will Inherit Money

April 25, 2019 2:39 AM ET
MATTHEW S. SCHWARTZ

With the pending payout of a parent's life insurance policy, the confessed Parkland, Fla., school shooter could get more than $430,000. So he is no longer entitled to be represented for free by a public defender, his lawyers said in a court filing Wednesday asking to withdraw from the case.

"It has come to the attention of undersigned counsel that Nikolas Cruz is a beneficiary in a MetLife life insurance policy and is entitled to half of a death benefit valued at $864,929.17 as of April 23, 2019," the Broward County Public Defender's Office wrote.

"The Law Office of the Public Defender is statutorily prohibited from representing a non-indigent defendant," the attorneys said, asking to withdraw from the case.

Last April, Judge Elizabeth Scherer declared Cruz "indigent" for purposes of the case, because even though he had a net worth of $28,000, that wouldn't be enough to cover his defense costs. The state compensates court-appointed defense attorneys up to $25,000 for cases where the potential sentence is death. "The cost of private representation would certainly far exceed $25,000, as Defendant is charged with seventeen separate counts of First Degree Murder, and is facing the death penalty on each of the seventeen counts," Scherer wrote.

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