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Security
Surf and Turf
Joshua Weintraub takes his expertise on sexual battery crimes to the private sector -- and to the high seas.
 As a prosecutor, Joshua Weintraub won some high-profile cases. Now in the private sector, he’ll be working from Hill Betts & Nash’s South Beach office. [Photo: Joshua Prezant] |
As the prosecutor in charge of sexual battery and child abuse cases in the 11th Judicial Circuit, Joshua Weintraub has won some of the highest-profile criminal cases in Miami over the past 15 years. He convicted the “Shenandoah Rapist”; the Florida International University police officer who sexually assaulted a young woman on the edge of campus; and the Miami parks and rec worker who molested a boy in an equipment shed.
Weintraub’s expertise, from the toxicology of date-rape drugs to the “party psychology” of Miami’s nightclub raves, makes him uniquely qualified for his new position, in which he hopes to prevent some of the types of crimes he’s prosecuted. Weintraub, at 46, is leaving government to become a partner in the New York firm Hill Betts & Nash, a maritime and insurance-defense outfit that’s been around so long it represented the Titanic’s owners.
Hill Betts & Nash took notice of Weintraub last year when Weintraub spearheaded a security conference that brought together the State Attorney’s Office, Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce and Miami Beach Police to try to curb sexual assault and weapons offenses at resorts, nightclubs and bars on South Beach and downtown Miami.
From the firm’s Brickell Key office, Weintraub will represent cruise lines as well as nightclubs and high-end bars in south Florida that get sued over inadequate security — one of the fastest-growing areas of civil litigation in the country. He also will handle commercial litigation and product-
liability defense.
Weintraub also hopes to continue his work on prevention, consulting with nightclub owners about how to spot date rape and rave drugs and how to hire security. He recommends off-duty cops. “Large, muscular bouncers dressed in black standing at your front doors are not the answer to your security and legal concerns,” he says. “Bouncers with prior criminal records, accepting a $50 or $100 bill from their buddies so they can walk into your club carrying a firearm or knife is without question
an owner’s worst nightmare.”
Weintraub says one of the hardest parts of leaving the State Attorney’s Office is no longer working with his mom, Sally Weintraub, who at 78 still prosecutes murder cases in the office. Born and raised in Miami, Weintraub says his city is better than the creepy slogan coined by Las Vegas: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“There’s a similar feeling when you come down to Miami and get lost on South Beach that you can get caught up in the party scene and lose yourself,” he says. “That’s not what our clients want to happen.”
