Murder charges dismissed against man who shot two on Riviera Beach boat

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/pb-boat-murder-charges-dropped-20110911,0,3261816.story

Murder charges dismissed against man who shot two on Riviera Beach boat


By Daphne Duret, The Palm Beach Post

9:39 p.m. EDT, September 11, 2011
Judy Mohlman thought there would at least be a trial. She said as much to her niece when she called to tell her that Michael Monahan, the man who shot Mohlman's son Raymond to death in April, had walked out of the Palm Beach County jail a free man.

In an application of Florida's controversial "Stand your Ground" statute, Circuit Judge Richard Oftedahl last week dismissed two first-degree murder charges against Monahan, 65. The judge ruled he was justified in shooting Raymond "Ramie" Mohlman and Matthew Vittum out of fear for his life during a dispute aboard a 35-foot sailboat anchored near Phil Foster Park.

"I don't understand it," Judy Mohlman said. "My whole family, we just didn't think it would happen this way."


In the 11-page ruling filed Tuesday, Oftedahl reconstructed details of the Sunday afternoon shooting, calling it a clear case of justified force under "Stand your Ground." an act signed into law in 2005 which gives a person the right to respond with force when threatened with death or bodily harm....

Read the article at the link. Why the fuck did the state go for first-degree murder charges? Manslaughter, I could see...

[ManiacJoe]

1. In this case, the devil is in the details; and unfortunately

there are no details in this news report.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Did you expect any better from the MSM?

That the judge was willing to rule as a matter of law means it must have been very very clear cut. Most of the time they would let it go to a jury.

[MicaelS]

2. Proseuctors probably thought he would cave

And plea bargain, then they get him for manslaughter, which is probably what they wanted in the first place.

And if there were tickets and bill of sale, should be easy to prove Monahan failed to probably re-register the sailboat.

Yes, too many unanswered questions.

And I would never live aboard a sailboat. Houseboat maybe, sailboat, hell no.

[onehandle]

3. (Insert GOP Debate Sadistic Applause Here) nt

[ileus]

4. One small win for self defense, one giant win for Mr. Monahan.

[Atypical Liberal]

6. Sounds fairly justified to me.

"Mohlman, 49, a one-time competitive wrestler who quit his teaching job at Palm Beach Lakes Community High School in June 2010 and spent much of the next 10 months in Belize, had confronted Monahan, claiming the older man had racked up $500 in tickets in his name because he refused to register the boat properly.

...

But according to Monahan's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Ramsey, witnesses told police that by the time Mohlman boarded the Green Galleon with Vittum on the day they died, his plans were to either evict Monahan from the boat, or to kill him.

...

Ramsey also noted that autopsy reports later showed that Mohlman's blood-alcohol level was at .23 when he died, nearly three times the level at which drivers are presumed legally impaired. Vittum's blood-alcohol level was .11 and the autopsy concluded he had cocaine, oxycodone and marijuana in his system when he was killed."

Looks like Mohlman and his buddy had a few drinks and decided to try and evict Monahan from his home.

Even though Mohlman was still the legal owner of Monahan's boat (home), Monahan had paid for the boat and even so there are laws that protect tenants in their homes, even rented ones.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. Isn't the sheriff's dept supposed to affect any evictions?

To avoid just this sort of issue, I'd imagine. Of course, with a .23 blood alcohol perhaps the legal owner was not in the best frame of mind and if he got physically confrontational someone could reasonably fear for their own safety.

[iverglas]

7. so who here honestly believes

that if the older drunk had not shot and killed the younger drunk, the older one would have ended up dead or seriously injured?

A judge can't say the older drunk didn't reasonably believe that. But I can say that I don't believe that, if no gun had been present, anyone would be dead.

Drunks with guns. Lovely place, there.

The other drunk with a gun in the same place referred to in that report:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rI2CqD2o1zUJ:www.palmbeachpost.com/news/boynton-beach-man-found-not-guilty-of-second-702252.html+%22Timothy+McTigue%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

(original article not available)

Two guys get into a fight, one shoots the other in the head. Nothing said about who or what started the fight ...

Strangely, for such a righteous shoot, police had to track that one down via witnesses etc.

http://www.myhometownnews.net/index.php?id=26232

The incident on May 6 occurred when Mr. Jackson, Mr. Lipscomb and Mr. Palmer were returning to the dock around 8:45 p.m. at Phil Foster Park when Mr. Palmer got into a verbal altercation with Mr. McTigue. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office does not know what the altercation was about.

"The only one who could give us that information is the suspect, and he wouldn't talk to us," said Detective Sean Oliver.

Mr. Palmer's friends told officers that they believed it started over a derogatory remark Mr. Palmer made about Mr. McTigue's girlfriend, but the two men did not know each other prior to the argument, said Detective Oliver.

Beyond belief ...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Who here has the data to make and informed judgment

There is no indication that the defendant was intoxicated at the time, so why are you calling him a drunk? Admittedly the similarity in names could lead to confusion.

Per http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-boat-shooting-defense-20110912,0,983210,full.story:
On Sept. 6, Palm Beach County Judge Richard Oftedal ruled that Monahan, 65, was justified in shooting Raymond Mohlman and Matthew Vittum under the "Stand Your Ground" law, which gives people the right to shoot if they feel their lives are in danger.

Mohlman and Vittum, who were intoxicated, cornered the disabled veteran in the cabin of his 35-foot sailboat during an argument near Phil Foster Park, according to court records.

" was within his rights to resist their criminal conduct with deadly force," Oftedal wrote in his ruling.

Seems pretty cut and dried to me if the judge ruled as he did as a matter of law.

[Hoopla Phil]

10. It would appear to me that there is an over zealous prosecutor at

work here. The article mentioned another incident at that same place that went to trial.

While there was some legal ambiguity on weather the guy was the owner of the boat, it is without doubt that it was his residence. Very open and shut IMO.

[iverglas]

11. ooooh, my bad (oops, this is a reply to post 9)

I actually failed to notice that the killer killed TWO people, not just one, and that the reference to the second person's blood alcohol was to the second victim.

Yes indeed, I'm sure that he NEEDED to kill TWO people in order to save his life. Killing one and giving the other one a second to reconsider just was not an option.

These are the people you want having guns, folks. The killer here quite obviously caused the dispute with his victims by failing to do what I would expect the law requires: register the boat he had bought in his name. The dispute seems to have been somewhat long-standing, and the killer had a really easy way to settle it: register the fucking boat transfer, and pay any tickets outstanding against it.

Instead, he apparently felt entitled to just do what he felt like, and then shoot the person whose life he was disrupting by his actions instead of just doing the rational and legal thing to end the dispute.

Yes, people like this really oughta have guns.

[gejohnston]

12. maybe if

the other two would have showed up sober and acting civilized, that would have happened. It may or may not have been an honest oversight. I am not big pretending to know information that only the jury knows. For example, we had a case of a dead child that turned into a media circus. When the mother was acquitted of murder, there was real outrage.
While the media talked about the mother not reporting the child missing for a month etc, and other detailed that may or may not have been true. Basically, the media convinced most Floridians that the mother murdered the child. The jury heard none of that. The State's case was simply, we have no idea how the baby died nor do we have any idea who the last person who saw the baby alive, but mom looks good for it because she is an unfit mother. It didn't take Perry Mason to show reasonable doubt.

We can sit and speculate all we want about some case that is very short on details. Unless you have access to all of the evidence and court transcripts, your assumption is as good or poor as anyone else's.

[iverglas]

13. maybe if you read the report

Mohlman, 49, a one-time competitive wrestler who quit his teaching job at Palm Beach Lakes Community High School in June 2010 and spent much of the next 10 months in Belize, had confronted Monahan, claiming the older man had racked up $500 in tickets in his name because he refused to register the boat properly. Mohlman had previously confronted Monahan about the tickets, saying the fees prevented him from taking a trip back to Belize.

Why did anyone need to do anything to get the occupant of the boat to do what he was required to do?

A teeny bit of googling ...

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/riviera-beach-man-charged-with-killing-2-men-1373583.html

Updated: 3:10 p.m. Friday, April 8, 2011

Raymond "Ramie" Mohlman's mom doesn't know the two men he was with when he was fatally shot. The only thing she knows is that before traveling to Belize, her 49-year-old son sold his sailboat to the man police say killed him.

... Police spokeswoman Rose Anne Brown said Vittum and Mohlman were dropped off at the 1972 mariner sailboat and began fighting with Monahan over citations he racked up under Mohlman's name, because he failed to register the Green Galleon under his own name. Gun shots were heard and police in the area found Mohlman and Vittum dead on the sailboat, and saw Monahan paddling away on a kayak.

Records show Monahan was cited in July for an expired registration and failure to have his registration certificate on board for his 1981 white Sea Ray boat and twice in March for failing to transfer the registration for his 25-foot white Chris Craft and his 33-foot white Silverton.

Gregory Reynolds, director of the Lagoon Keepers, a not-for-profit organization working to clean up the Intracoastal Waterway, was familiar with Monahan and said he has three other boats also not registered under his name. Reynolds said Monahan received some marine citations a few weeks ago, however he said they were "unrelated to the fight."

Yeah, a character.

I guess people should run background checks on the people they sell their boats to if they don't want to end up getting shot dead.

A slightly different version for what it's worth:

http://www.wpbf.com/news/27422239/detail.html

Doerre, who was dating Vittum, told WPBF 25 News that her boyfriend went with Mohlman to help him sell the boat.

"Raymond was selling the boat to the man that was on it, and the man had never paid him for the boat yet and he was getting citations for not registering the boat, so they went out there to evict the man from the boat," Doerre said.

Police said Monahan shot and killed the men instead.

Ya takes yer heroes where ya can get 'em, I suppose.

[gejohnston]

14. since I was doubting the media

I was doubting the media, and yeah I read the report. Most of my rant was questioning the media. The owner should have sent the cops to serve an eviction notice. Thirty days later, the cops would have forcibly removed him. He could have contested the tickets and probably would have won. Instead of doing the civilized thing, he decided to get drunk and get belligerent and get violent.
If the situation were reversed. If the occupant was drunk, violent and macho and got shot, you would blame the owner for not sending the cops to serve an eviction notice. Thirty days later, the cops would have forcibly removed him. He could have contested the tickets and probably would have won.

[iverglas]

15. yes, and ... ?

If the occupant was drunk, violent and macho and got shot, you would blame the owner for not sending the cops to serve an eviction notice.

So? In this case I blame the occupant for being what he obviously is, a total asshole. Who killed two people in the course of his assholery.

He could have contested the tickets and probably would have won.

Really? The registered owner of a vehicle/boat is not responsible for tickets issued against it?

And there I thought that was the whole purpose of registration of those things ... to hold the registered owner accountable for liabilities associated with it ...

The way it's done here is that if you sell a vehicle privately (I don't know from boats but I will assume the same), you do not hand over the vehicle until you have accompanied the purchaser to the nearest Ministry of Transportation franchise and the owner has presented their receipt for the purchase price and the signed bit of your registration transferring ownership, and registered their ownership.

I'll bet the registered owner/seller in this case really wishes he'd done that.

I didn't, the last time I was in Florida. My dad had died, we had to dispose of his stuff, terrible market, we found buyers for his broken pickup and his trailer, I forged his signature on the pink things, the new owners hauled them off, and we split. Hope he didn't get any tickets if they failed to re-register. ;)

Does one actually need a bailiff or a court order to remove someone from a boat? He just looks like a trespasser to me. There was no rental agreement, and he wasn't the owner. Can't you use all necessary force to remove somebody from your property in Florida? Hell, the registered owner could probably have shot him ...

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Couple issues here, that will vary with state law.

First off a sail boat can be a legally recognized residence, and yes, we have all sorts of protections for evicting someone from their residence. Always always always have the police do it. If you insist on asking the person directly, by all means, do it sober. Because holy shit... .23? yikes.

Second, yeah, our title transfers are different, and again, will vary by state. In WA, the seller has a stub from the title that he or she can mail in within 3 days of the transfer. having done so, the seller is insulated from any liability from the actions of the buyer. If the buyer has not paid, as was alleged in one of the articles, the title should not be handed over, and possession of the boat should be retained by the seller until and unless.


I know a guy that was held responsible for a $25k utility pole, because a month after a vehicle sale, he still had not transferred the title, and the car was wrapped around the pole, and the buyer walked away from the whole thing. Seattle Light let him keep the pole, and dropped it off in his yard. Expensive lawn ornament.

[gejohnston]

17. In my experience,

at least in Kansas and Florida anyway, the ticket is issued to the individual driving. The driver's DL is recorded on the ticket, the ticket is written to that individual, and that individual signs receipt. That individual is responsible. The ticket would be on him, not your dad. He probably could get away with not changing the title until the plate expires (assuming he is not pulled over for something, where he most likely be asked why he is driving your dad's truck.)
In this case, the boat was a residence, landlord tenet issues are kind of tricky in Florida. The law gives tenets more rights than in many states. If it were me, I would have gon to the courthouse and written an eviction notice and have the cops deliver.
As for boats as a vehicle, never dealt with the issue. I am quite happy with my nonpolluting kayak. I do know that if the buyer had a lot of cash, most likely payments would be involved. I would have a lien on the title as a creditor (unless he took out a loan from a bank and paid me, which obviously did not happen.) In which case, he could just pay a repo guy after jumping through the needed hoops. Since the boat could be both, always see a lawyer.

[Kennah]

18. Agreed. Call a lawyer or call the cops.

If you sell someone a boat, and they don't register it, I don't see where getting drunk and bringing a drunk, high, convicted felon with you in any way places one in any category other than greater asshole.

Vittum had oxy in his system. Wonder if he's a Ditto-head? If so, that's an even larger variety of asshole.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/riviera-beach-man-charged-with-killing-2-men-1373583.html

"Vittum had been arrested many times between 1997 and 2009. Charges included burglary, larceny, grant theft of a motor vehicle, operating an unregistered or unnumbered vessel, aggravated assault, and narcotics. He served about four years off and on in jail for charges of burglary and grand theft."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/pb-boat-murder-charges-dropped-20110911,0,3261816.story

"Vittum's blood-alcohol level was .11 and the autopsy concluded he had cocaine, oxycodone and marijuana in his system when he was killed."

[AtheistCrusader]

19. That's an interesting combination of illicit drugs.

Is that even normal to combine the two?

[jeepnstein]

20. Normal, what is normal?

There are people walking among us with the most unbelievable witches brew of drugs in their systems.