Case dropped against Broward woman accused of trying to kill father, 88, in hospice

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Broward prosecutors have declined to pursue the tried homicide case against a Deerfield Beach woman deputies accused of trying to kill her terminally sick 88-year-old father, Local 10 News has discovered.

Lori Lee Brucker, 66, had additionally been charged with home battery via strangulation and battery on an individual over 65. Those fees have been dropped as smartly.

The wheelchair-bound woman have been accused of trying to choke her father to demise in his medical institution mattress at Broward Health North, positioned at 201 E. Sample Road, on Feb. 16.

A nurse had instructed Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives that she walked into the person’s medical institution room and noticed Brucker protecting her father’s mouth with one hand “and choking him with the other hand,” an arrest file said.

He died of herbal reasons two days later, the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office made up our minds.

Soon after her arrest, Brucker’s lawyer, Ken Padowitz, blasted the case as “very flimsy” and stated he used to be assured that his shopper would be successful in courtroom.

In a May 10 closeout letter outlining the state’s determination to decline the case, Broward Assistant State Attorney Marcie Zaccor said that there used to be “no reasonable likelihood of conviction,” with prosecutors not able to meet their burden of evidence for the costs.

She summarized the verdict to now not pursue the rate home battery via strangulation rate as follows:

“Based on the contradictory testimony of the parties inside the victim’s hospital room; the alternative explanation as to why the victim’s vitals could be elevated, thus causing his agitation; the lack of visible injuries to the victim after the incident; the defendant’s lack of motive to harm her father, (she knew he was terminally ill with only a few days left to live); the testimony of her brother and boyfriend that she loved her father and would never harm him; and finally the Medical Examiner’s report stating there was ‘no pathological evidence that smothering or any other trauma contributed to his death,’ there is no reasonable likelihood of conviction to charge the defendant with Domestic Battery by Strangulation.”

Broward Assistant State Attorney Marcie Zaccor

Zaccor additional famous that an tried homicide rate relied at the state being ready to turn out the underlying crime of home battery via strangulation.

“As stated above, the State cannot meet its burden of proof to charge the underlying crime, thus not even meeting the second prong to consider the charge of Attempted Felony Murder,” Zaccor wrote.

In a observation to Local 10 News on Thursday, Padowitz stated Brucker plans to sue BSO.

“The arrest of my client was an abomination from the start. To be deprived of her liberty and taken to jail and strip-searched without a detailed police investigation, for merely visiting her dying Dad in Hospice is the real crime,” he stated. “She could not go to her own Dad’s funeral because she was locked up. The State Attorney did the right thing and dropped this case. We will now be filing suit against the police department for false arrest.”

A BSO spokesperson stated Thursday afternoon that the company doesn’t touch upon doable litigation.