1. POLICE MISCONDUCT. From the earliest days, police developed tunnel vision, focusing on Misty Croslin as being the person responsible for the disappearance and presumed death of Haleigh Cummings. Unable to find evidence that would prove their theory … unable to “crack” a 17-year-old girl with their hours, days and weeks of intensive questioning … they didn’t consider that maybe they were wrong. Instead, local police departments plotted together to purposely entrap Mistry Croslin just after she turned 18 for felony possession of pain pills with intent to sell — even though it was Misty’s abusive, domineering and pedophile boyfriend Ronald Cummings who had an extensive criminal record. Misty had experimented with drugs like many young people do, indeed she was raised by two drug-dependent parents, but she had no criminal record at that point. So the police colluded with various law enforcement agencies to set Misty up for a crime she had not committed — and would not have committed — except for the insistence of an undercover police officer who pleaded that he desperately needed pain pills to deal with a work injury. The police sting made sure that A) Misty had just turned 18 and could be charged as an adult; B) the amount of the sale of drugs ($3,000) would trigger maximum penalties; and C) the drug sales would be committed in two different counties, so in case they lost the case in one county they would have another shot in the second county. (This reeks of double jeopardy, although it falls short of the legal definition.) In court, the police then tried to sell this elaborate entrapment planned for months and coordinated with multiple law enforcement agencies as just a routine drug bust that happened to catch Misty Croslin.

2. JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT. Given that the case was purely entrapment on a trumped up charge because police had no evidence to bring actually charges against Misty in the Haleigh Cummings case, the judge should have seen the proceedings as the set up that is was and dismissed the charges. Failing to do that, Judge Wendy Berger ignored the opportunity to sentence Misty to six years in prison as a first time non-violent offender. Instead, Judge Berger, a Jeb Bush political appointee, looking to make a name for herself with the tough law-and-order right-wing crowd, threw two 25 year prison terms and two $250,000 fines and five years probation at a barely 18-year-old Misty Croslin. Misty’s great crime? Selling $3,000 of pain pills to a man who said he was in great pain and needed them to work. A 25 year drug sentence typically goes to drug “kingpins” who sell millions of dollars of drugs and engage in violent acts, including killing. Never before had such a harsh sentence been handed down that is so disproportional to the crime itself. It bares investigating whether Judge Wendy Berger acted fairly and impartially in this case, or if she was in bed with prosecutors on this case, mind made up, and hellbent to render vengeance — not justice — based on the disappearance of Haleigh Cummings, not the case being tried in her courtroom. If that was Judge Berger’s frame of mind — vengeance for Haleigh Cummings — a case for which Misty Croslin was never even charged — then the draconian sentence she imposed makes sense. It also makes it judicial misconduct. Not long after this case, Judge Berger was promoted to the Fifth District Court of Appeal by Governor Rick Scott. In 2018, she was nominated for the federal bench by Donald Trump. Is this a coincidence, or evidence of rewards paid to a career-climbing Wendy Berger who is willing to serve the wishes of her political masters?

3. INADEQUATE DEFENSE. Misty Croslin has the IQ level of a third grade child. She never had a stable home upbringing. She grew up with drug-addicted parents and fell into that life herself because it was all she had know and who she was surrounded by. Her public defender was over-worked and didn’t have adequate time and resources to mount a defense that would pierce the misconduct of the police and the courts. Misty has said that during trial she was on prescription anti-anxiety medication to keep her calm and that medicine interfered with her thinking and the decisions she made.

4. PREJUDICIAL PUBLICITY. Having been vilified in the press as a drug addict herself and widely blamed in tabloids and on TV for the disappearance of Haleigh Cummings, Misty could not get a fair trial in that fevered atmosphere. Night after night on TV came a parade of Internet “experts” trumpeting groundless theories and blaming Misty without proof.

5. MISTY CROSLIN’S LIFE IS WORTH SAVING. Misty never had a fair chance at living a healthy life. But she tried to under her abusive circumstances. She is the girl who stopped going to school because she was ashamed she couldn’t read because nobody took the time to sit with her and teach her. In prison, she enrolled in the G.E.D. program to finally get an education. I can report first hand that she now reads and writes! Misty even worked in the prison library. She could be filled with hatred for all the abuse and neglect that has been heaped upon her from her parents to the legal system. But unbelievably she is hopeful. She just wants her ridiculous prison sentence reduced so she can be released and live a normal, healthy life for the first time.

6. THE REAL VILLAIN IS STILL OUT THERE. When you lock up Misty Croslin for 25 years and throw away the key on a trumped-up entrapment because you don’t have any evidence that would stand up in court to show she did anything to Haleigh Cummings, you leave the real perpetrator still at large, unpunished and able to harm other children. Locking Misty up for selling $3,000 of pain pills does not solve the Haleigh Cummings case. It merely takes the spotlight and negative publicity off the inept local police and official misconduct by the courts. Sleep tight, America.