Pubdate: Sat, 14 Sep 2002
Source: Arizona Republic (AZ)
Copyright: 2002 The Arizona Republic
Contact:  http://www.arizonarepublic.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: Doris Bloodsworth and Pedro Ruz Gutierrez, Orlando Sentinel

NOELLE BUSH INVESTIGATORS SUBPOENA 4 AT DRUG CLINIC

ORLANDO - The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office has joined the Orlando 
Police Department in the drug investigation of Noelle Bush, issuing 
subpoenas to four workers at the drug treatment center where Florida Gov. 
Jeb Bush's daughter is staying.

But a lawyer representing the four subpoenaed employees of the Center for 
Drug-Free Living said Friday that federal laws prevent the workers from 
answering investigators' questions. Those laws protect the confidentiality 
of clients at the center and keep nearly everything about the program secret.

"It's not something the center wants to do," attorney Carlos Burruezo said. 
"It's not a stall tactic or a delay tactic. It is against the law for us to 
talk about any client's business with the Center for Drug-Free Living."

Accompanied by one of the four, Burruezo briefly met with a prosecutor and 
an Orlando police investigator at the State Attorney's Office on Friday.

The only daughter of the governor is the focus of a criminal investigation 
that started when someone at the center called police Monday night to 
report that Noelle Bush, 25, had bought crack cocaine, police said.

In a call to police dispatchers, an unidentified woman said: "One of the 
women here was caught buying crack cocaine tonight. And a lot of the women 
are upset because she's been caught about five times."

Later in the call, she said: "She does this all the time, and she gets out 
of it because she's the governor's daughter. But we're sick of it here 
because we have to do what's right. But she gets treated like some kind of 
princess." The caller said she was one of the women at the center "trying 
to get our lives together."

Lisa Roberson, a spokeswoman for the State Attorney's Office, would not 
discuss the specifics of the investigation. But Burruezo said prosecutors 
would seek a judge's order to compel the center employees to testify.

Center officials have refused to comment.

Orlando police asked the State Attorney's Office to issue subpoenas after 
investigators said the employees failed to cooperate Monday night.

When Orlando police officers arrived at the west Orlando women's drug 
treatment residence, a worker told officers she found a "small, white, 
rocklike substance" in Bush's shoe. Police said it was 0.2 gram of crack 
cocaine.

Julia Elias, the employee who discovered the drug, completed a written 
statement but later tore it up and threw it away after her supervisor, 
Vilma Accison, told her to stop talking to investigators, according to a 
police report.

Burruezo, the center's lawyer, said Accison, Elias, employee Sandra J. 
Williams and program Director Joyce Bruton were subpoenaed.
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