The third week of March 2018 was an important week for the Reinhart-Bell family.
That Monday, then-Governor of Florida Rick Scott appointed federal prosecutor Carolyn Bell to serve as a judge of the state circuit court.
A few days later, Bell’s husband – Bruce Reinhart – was sworn in as a federal magistrate judge in South Florida, outranking 63 other candidates for the job.
Quite a week, but nothing compared to the week they had – and probably what they have ahead.
Since Reinhart approved an FBI warrant that authorized a search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, he and his family have become the target of violent threats from right-wing Internet trolls who seek to defame and discredit the judge. trying to scare.
His address and personal information were posted online. A poster on the pro-Trump site reads, “I can see a rope around his neck.” Anti-Jewish threats followed.
“It’s a really terrible situation and completely undesirable to be with someone who’s just trying to do their job. And it’s absolutely wrong to be attacked personally,” said Michelle Susqueer, over 15 Family friends for years.
Late last week, Reinhart opened the search warrant and, on Thursday, heard arguments from media organizations and the Justice Department, grappling with whether to issue the warrant’s underlying affidavit. That document gives the reason for the government to seek a search warrant and may be the most politically charged paper in the country at present.
Reinhart said he was ready to remove at least some parts of the affidavit and asked the government to make suggestions.
In the courtroom, a lawyer for media organizations seeking to make the affidavit public told Reinhart, “I get paid for being goofy sometimes.”
“I sometimes get paid to say ‘no,'” Reinhart quipped.
Friends and acquaintances say the vintage Reinhart is the kind of friendly, yet quick reply. Those who spoke with him over the past week told CBS News that he is unimpressed by the political whirlwind around him and the dangers he now faces.
South Florida defense attorney Bruce Zimmett has known Reinhart professionally for nearly 20 years and had a case in front of Reinhart last Thursday.
“He conducted himself as usual,” Zimmett said. “If he had other things on his mind, it wouldn’t have shown up in the proceedings before me.”
Another source told CBS News that Reinhart now has a U.S. There is a security detail provided by Marshall and he is taking the threats seriously, but Trump has resolved to postpone the case as he would any other case before him.
Reinhart, 60, grew up in Somerville, New Jersey, Princeton attending the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate and law school. He clerked for a federal judge before a stint in the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department and for two years as a senior policy advisor at the Treasury Department. Between 1996 and 2008, Reinhart served as a federal prosecutor in South Florida.
Reinhart’s wife, Bell, is a juvenile court judge, and they met when the two worked at the Justice Department.
In 2008, Reinhart moved into private practice, specializing in white-collar criminal defense. One of his clients was a Florida police officer who was convicted of using excessive force against a suspect and violating that suspect’s civil rights.
For a time Reinhart shared the West Palm Beach office space with attorney Jack Goldberger.
Goldberger said, “Without hesitation, if I had a situation where I needed another in some case, I wouldn’t have even thought of anyone else. I would automatically go to Bruce. Automatically, Goldberger said. Together, they worked on several health care fraud cases.
Goldberger has represented an assortment of high-profile clients including New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, although Reinhart was not part of any defense team.
But Reinhart has been scrutinized for a relationship with Epstein. In 2008 the U.S. Shortly after leaving a senior role in the attorney’s office, Reinhart defended Epstein’s employees, including his scheduler and pilot. As the Miami Herald reports, Reinhart said he was not part of the Justice Department team investigating Epstein and denied that he had knowledge of the case that could lead to an ethical conflict. .
“Even assuming that I had ‘personally and substantially’ participated in the Epstein investigation [which I did not], the relevant Justice Department regulations would allow me to jointly only on behalf of Mr. Epstein. States were prohibited from communicating with or appearing before the United States,” Reinhart said in a 2018 email to the Herald.