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The woman convicted in 2012 of killing a Lakeland man who won millions in the lottery wants to be released from prison or face a new trial.
Dorice “Dee Dee” Moore, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Abraham Shakespeare, filed a motion for post-conviction relief in 2017 and has since filed amended motions. Moore’s search primarily rests on allegations that she received ineffective counsel at her trial, held at Hillsborough County Circuit Court.
Circuit judge Michelle Sisco has dismissed some of Moore’s claims and dismissed others, while allowing Moore to amend and resubmit them. The case has been going on for years and was continued on Wednesday in Tampa with a witness hearing.
Shakespeare won a $17 million payment from the Florida Lottery in 2006. Prosecutors said Moore befriended him in 2008 after Shakespeare gave away or loaned most of his winnings.
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Moore, then the owner of a nurse staffing company, took control of Shakespeare’s remaining money and murdered him after realizing he couldn’t access his money and becoming suspicious, prosecutors said.
Investigators found Shakespeare’s body in January 2010, buried behind a house in Plant City that Moore owned. He had been shot twice in the chest and a concrete slab covered the grave. Shakespeare had been reported missing the previous year and authorities determined he had been murdered on April 6, 2009 at the age of 43.
The Lakeland Police Department played a key role in the investigation and search for Shakespeare. Officers said Moore enacted an elaborate scheme to mislead police into making it appear Shakespeare was alive long after she allegedly killed him. Moore claimed that others were involved in the murder, such as a drug dealer named “Ronald”, who prosecutors called a fictional character.
During sentencing at Moore’s trial, circuit judge Emmett Lamar Battles called her “the most manipulative person” he had seen and described the murder as “cold”, “calculated” and “cruel”.
In her initial 2017 filing, Moore made four claims of ineffective counsel assistance, three based on her trial and one based on alleged failures of her appellate attorney. In April 2019, Moore expanded on those claims in a 48-page amended motion, which included a 10-page handwritten addendum.
In that filing, Moore listed 12 grounds for seeking her sentence overturned or a new trial. All involved allege that her attorney, Byron Hileman, was ineffective in defending her at her trial. (Hileman, who ran a Bartow practice, died in January.)
Moore, now 50, claimed evidence showed Shakespeare was alive months after prosecutors claimed she killed him, and she wrote that Hileman failed to investigate and provide supporting evidence. She wrote that her lawyer had not called any witnesses who could have refute the prosecution’s story.
Earlier, as of 2012: Jury convicts Dorice ‘DeeDee’ Moore of murder of lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare
Moore alleged, among other things, that her attorney should have filed a motion to block “deeply prejudicial” statements from a detective who said she had offered to give him a free room at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa and perform sexual acts for him. perform.
Moore wrote that her attorney failed to present a “reasonable hypothesis of innocence” to the jury.
In the amended motion, Moore also alleged prosecutorial misconduct, alleging that the state manipulated evidence during the trial and failed to share evidence favorable to her. She alleged that prosecutors allowed false testimony from witnesses.
Andrew Warren, then the district attorney for the 13e Judicial Circuit, filed a detailed response in 2020 refuting Moore’s claims. Warren admitted that a witness interview was needed to resolve parts of two claims involving blood and DNA evidence.
Moore appeared at a witness hearing in Tampa on Wednesday. Christopher Bolt, Moore’s former attorney, testified for the prosecution and said the defense team had done nothing wrong, TV station WTVT reported.
At the hearing, Moore alleged that Lakeland police officers took bribes from drug dealers, WTVT reported. Robin Tillett, a spokesman for the Lakeland Police Department, said LPD had no comment on that claim.
More: Mother of slain lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare’s son wins $1 million jackpot in Lakeland
Sisco is expected to make a ruling next month, WTVT reported.
The Shakespeare case attracted national attention when Moore went to trial. His murder has been the subject of documentaries and episodes of TV shows such as ‘Snapped’ and ‘Web of Death’.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Woman seeks retrial in death of lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare
