Long-time Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice brings a wealth of knowledge to Cohen, Jayson & Foster in the areas of leadership and investigative techniques. With 34 years of experience in law enforcement, Rice steadily worked his way up the ranks from the Police Academy to Chief of Detectives. His innate passion for justice led him to study law while working in the Sheriff’s Office, receiving his Juris Doctorate from Stetson Law School in 1984. Rice is also a graduate of both the FBI Academy and the FBI National Executive Institute.
Everett left law enforcement in 1985 to practice law full-time at the law firm of Kwall and Rice, P.A. in Pinellas County. Feeling as though he still had a difference to make in law enforcement, Rice entered the Republican primary for Sheriff in 1988. He won the primary and the general election by a two-to-one margin. He was re-elected for three subsequent terms.
As Sheriff, Everett Rice managed one of the largest and most progressive law enforcement and corrections agencies in the country, with over 3,000 employees and a budget exceeding $200 million. In 1997, Rice was elected president of the Florida Sheriffs’ Association. Under his leadership, the FSA lobbied and won creation of the Department of Juvenile Justice, and also lobbied to create rules requiring felons to complete at least 85% of their prison sentence.
In 1996, Pinellas County voters passed term limits for all county constitutional officers. Rice took exception to the term limits, on the basis that the office of Sheriff was a state office and, as such, not subject to a county charter amendment. He instigated a lawsuit that year, and 6 ½ years later, a Florida Supreme Court ruling tossed out the county term limits; out of respect for the 1996 vote, in 2004 Rice did not run for re-election as sheriff. He was, however, elected in 2004 (without opposition) to a seat in the Florida House of Representatives.
Everett Rice first met Senior Partner Barry Cohen in an adversarial relationship, when Cohen sued the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies for access to documents in 1989 during the investigation of Dr. William LaTorre, a Pinellas County doctor who was ultimately acquitted on four counts of vessel homicide charges. Impressed with Cohen’s legal acumen and advocacy skills demonstrated in the courtroom, Rice himself called upon Cohen to represent the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in 1994, when a former U.S. Attorney threatened the agency with a lawsuit. After receiving correspondence from Cohen, the complainant failed to follow through on his threat of litigation, saving county taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in superfluous litigation.
Rice will divide his practice at Cohen, Jayson & Foster between state and federal criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense and civil litigation. He will also work closely with the firm’s in-house investigation team and external investigators (former FBI agents, IRS special agents and FDA officials) to artfully discover information before it is “properly framed” by government or corporate investigators or representatives.