All charges dropped against Drotos and Ryals
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – All charges have been dropped against commercial real estate agents Daniel Drotos and Michael Ryals in a case that accused them of fraud, racketeering, and theft of trade secrets and intellectual property. A statement from the office of State Attorney Brian Kramer said charges were dropped as a result of a mediation on September 14, 2022, with former State Attorney Rod Smith. All charges and pending charges against other people connected with the case were also dropped.
Drotos and Ryals sued Bosshardt in 2019 for breaching their contract by failing to pay them agreed-upon real estate commissions, leading to a counter-charge in August of 2019 from Bosshardt that Drotos and Ryals had stolen “trade secrets” from their company. A judge ruled in August of 2022 that Bosshardt Realty Services must pay $1.3 million to Drotos and Ryals, effectively settling the dispute, but the criminal charges remained active until today.
GPD’s SWAT team raided the offices of Colliers International on June 2, 2021, when none of the people named in the sworn complaint were present. State Attorney Brian Kramer defended the raid on grounds that it can be dangerous to serve search warrants. Three of the employees who were present sued the City of Gainesville and GPD for the return of their property, GPD agreed to return the property in August, and GPD’s internal investigation into the raid found no violations of their policies.
The State Attorney filed charges against Drotos and Ryals on February 1, 2022, and their attorney filed a motion asking the judge to issue a summons to appear in court instead of an arrest warrant, but on February 4, an attorney representing Bosshardt Realty Services filed a motion asking for a warrant for the arrest of Drotos and Ryals so they would have to make a First Appearance “and The Victim may be heard.” Drotos and Ryals were arrested on February 10.
In his statement, Kramer said, “All participants to the mediation recognized that the State Attorney initially filed a criminal Information against Mr. Ryals and Mr. Drotos based upon evidence provided to the State after an investigation by the Gainesville Police Department. By consenting to mediate the criminal cases, the State Attorney worked with the named victims and the defendants, as well as other interested parties, to reach a fair and just resolution in light of the circumstances surrounding the charges. All affected persons acknowledge the efforts by the State Attorney that brought this matter to a fair and satisfactory conclusion.”
Bosshard should have to pay all their cost it sounded like BS from the beginning
Going from the media reports, this appeared to be a civil matter between experienced litigants from the outset. Yet we seem to have dangerous people walking the streets because the SAO can’t get cases filed in a timely manner. If the SAO doesn’t have enough resources to deal with hardened criminals threatening innocent citizens, then their management needs to be extra vigilant about wasting taxpayer funds getting drawn into a business of dispute.
Does SAO seem to have a problem meeting the 179 day prosecution deadline?
Time for another lawsuit. Kramer needs to get his head out of his behind, stop taking thugs to football games, stop running a campaign to register criminals to vote, etc., and actually do his job correctly.
Contrary to the Gainesville Suns Opinon this issue is just getting started, Not Empty. Stay Tuned ! Bad news for Dems.
State Attorney Kramer is a Republican
The damage is done! That’s why bosshardt wanted them arrested instead of a summons! The used the system for payback!
Let me see if I have this right: The Gainesville Police Department (GPD) decided to raid a local Collier’s real estate office using a SWAT Team to recover “stolen” trade secrets that were *in fact not stolen*. The GPD internal review of the SWAT raid found nothing wrong, but how did the GPD get the information that there were “stolen trade secrets” at the Collier’s office in the first place? Isn’t it wrong to conduct a raid if there was no crime? Why did they jump to the conclusion a crime had been committed instead of conducting a thorough investigation? Could it be that GPD and the State Attorney’s Office (SAO) were unduly influenced by long term associations with Bosshardt and associates? What exactly is the nature of those connections? That’s the true story here.