“They found Dolce actively downloading youngster pornography utilizing peer-2-peer software program,” the Department of Justice alleges.
A longtime Sunday college trainer who was as soon as one of many state’s most outstanding advocates for reforming sexual abuse statutes, Dolce is behind bars awaiting his arraignment, scheduled for mid-April. He’s dealing with a toddler porn possession cost that carries a most sentence of 20 years in jail.
Dolce’s onetime coworkers at Cohen Milstein in Palm Beach County are beside themselves attempting to sq. how one of many agency’s ace litigators in sexual abuse circumstances may wind up charged with a sexual offense. Dolce, who stated he was a survivor of kid molestation, constructed a fame for dealing with high-stakes lawsuits and taking an uncompromising stance not solely on sexual offenders however on those that allow them.
A associate on the agency, Dolce had been working at Cohen Milstein since 2015. He was fired two days after the raid on his dwelling.
“The agency is surprised and saddened by these appalling allegations. Michael Dolce was terminated and is not affiliated with the agency. We are targeted on attending to the wants of our purchasers and workers, and persevering with to cooperate absolutely with the investigation,” Cohen Milstein stated in an announcement.
At a March 30 listening to, Dolce agreed to undergo pretrial detention whereas reserving his proper to later problem it. His legal professional didn’t reply to a request for remark from New Times.
“Commitment of a Survivor”
Dolce’s early advocacy dated again to his work lobbying for HB 525, a invoice handed in 2010 to take away the statute of limitations for legal and civil circumstances arising from the sexual abuse of victims beneath the age of 16.
Between 2004 and 2010, Dolce repeatedly testified earlier than Florida legislators in assist of the measure, noting that abuse survivors are sometimes too scared or ashamed to return ahead instantly. He stated he was molested by a neighbor as a seven-year-old boy and that by the point he mustered the braveness to talk out about it years later, he couldn’t pursue a declare as a result of the statute of limitations had handed.
His push for legislative reform confronted opposition from the Catholic church and legal protection legal professionals’ associations, amongst others, who argued that litigating decades-old molestation claims can be unfair.
“The regulation was defending the predators. They had been inspired beneath the regulation to silence their victims, to threaten them,” he stated in an interview within the aftermath of the invoice’s passage. “It was a tremendous day [when the bill passed]. I wept with pleasure. I used to be overwhelmed by reduction.”
Dolce acquired his regulation diploma in 1994 from Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida, based on his skilled profile.
He claimed in a 2009 interview that he had been educating Sunday college for 14 years. He additionally alluded to a virtually five-year stint working within the state legislature, saying it helped familiarize him with the lobbying and bill-writing course of.
According to his skilled profile, he shaped Dolce & Paruas in 2012 and labored there till 2015, when he jumped to Cohen Milstein, a big agency with a half-dozen workplaces unfold throughout the nation and greater than 100 legal professionals in its secure. By the time he joined the agency, he had already garnered a fame for pursuing high-stakes litigation involving intercourse abuse claims.
During his tenure at Cohen Milstein, he reportedly secured giant settlements for his purchasers together with a $4.6 million deal in 2019 on behalf of an grownup plaintiff, who alleged that his father had sexually abused him all through his childhood.
Dolce labored out of an workplace in Palm Beach Gardens, in a stretch of property sandwiched between Singer Island and a beach-side golf course neighborhood close to Juno Beach.
His skilled profile stated he “brings to his work the perception and dedication of a survivor, having himself been the sufferer of sexual abuse as a younger boy by the hands of a sadistic predator.”
“We fight a fight that can often lead to a disappointing end, but we still have to fight it because what happened to our clients cannot be allowed to continue,” Dolce stated in a 2020 commerce journal interview.
The Bust
Dolce, 53, was alone in his West Palm Beach dwelling when the FBI got here knocking.
Agents had surveillance groups in place to observe him previous to the raid.
“Entry into the residence occurred on account of a forceful breach on the door when Dolce didn’t reply to instructions by regulation enforcement to return to the door. Tactical surveillance and entry groups revealed that Dolce was alone within the residence, awake on a mattress on the time FBI personnel first knocked,” the FBI says.
On Dolce’s Samsung laptop computer, folders had been open containing a number of illicit photos, the FBI says. One subfolder was titled “Sweet Pedo Stars” and contained photos of a prepubescent lady between the age of 9 and 11, based on the affidavit.
As of March 24, the FBI says, brokers had situated no less than 1,997 youngster porn photos on the pc.
Court information present Dolce litigated a minimum of 15 civil circumstances in Florida within the final 7 years, most of which had been associated to claims of sexual abuse.
One of the final items of litigation he filed concerned a consumer who alleged that she was coerced right into a threesome whereas drunk and tripping on magic mushrooms at a home social gathering in Miami. Two weeks in the past, opposing counsel seen Dolce’s disappearance from the case however didn’t be taught the rationale for it till Dolce’s arrest got here to mild March 29.