MEGGS EXPECTS GRAND-JURY PROBE, FIRST DEGREE-MURDER CHARGES IN HOFFMAN CASE

State prosecutors expect to schedule a grand jury hearing in the
Rachel Hoffman case, but they are waiting on the investigation into
her death to be completed and for a new grand jury to be impaneled,
State Attorney Willie Meggs said.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is taking the lead on the
investigation into the death of Hoffman, 23, a Florida State graduate
who was killed while working as a police informant during a May 7 drug
sting.

Deneilo Bradshaw, 23, and Andrea Green, 25, were arrested May 8 in
Orlando in her kidnapping and armed robbery. They led investigators to
her body in Taylor County May 9.

Both have entered pleas of not guilty.

The current grand jury for Leon County will be disbanded Monday, and a
new 21-member grand jury will be sworn in June 11, Meggs said. The
members are picked randomly. Each grand jury has a term of about six
months.

"If at some point in time, if they are arrested for first-degree
murder, all first-degree murders have to go to grand jury," Meggs
said. "I have every reason to believe that we will get to that stage."

Bradshaw has a conflict attorney, Gregory Cummings, which means
Bradshaw has a conflict with co-defendant Green, who is represented by
two assistant public defenders in the capital-murder division, Ines
Suber and Steven Been.

"I don't know what the conflict is," Meggs said. "I would guess they
may have differing defenses."

Bradshaw has a case management conference set for Aug. 13, and Green
will be arraigned June 23. Both are being held in Leon County Jail
without bail.

Meanwhile, the Florida Attorney General's Office has not completed its
review of the Tallahassee Police Department's internal policies and
procedures as related to the Hoffman case.

"While we do not have a specific timeline, we will complete our
independent review as expeditiously as circumstances permit while
striving to ensure the integrity of the process," said Sandi Copes, a
spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office. "At this point in the
review, it is too preliminary to determine what form any findings from
this office might take."

In a "My View" column printed today in the Tallahassee Democrat ,
Rachel Hoffman's father, Irv Hoffman, writes about ways to change the
process of becoming an undercover informant so that a similar
situation won't happen again.

"I just don't want to see this happen to anybody else," said Irv
Hoffman, who lives in Palm Harbor. "I want informants to have rights,
too, especially when they're being put in dangerous situations when
anything can happen and anything can go wrong, especially where there
are guns involved."