Circuit court Judge Robert Meadows said he feels sad to be leaving Vero Beach, as he is shifted to a St. Lucie County courtroom, but he has the satisfaction of knowing he made a serious dent in the mountainous backlog of felony cases he inherited when he arrived at the Indian River County Courthouse in 2023.

“We worked very hard to bring a lot of old cases to fruition and bring the felony docket down,” the Vero Beach native said. “Indian River County only has one felony judge and time management is priority. There were over 1,700 cases on the docket when I took it over and the docket now sits below 870.

“The State Attorney’s office, the Public Defender’s office and all of the private attorneys, along with our great clerks, worked very hard and close with the court to make it all happen.”

The felony backlog began during a change of judges in 2019 and got much worse during the pandemic that began in March 2020, temporarily closing the courts and suspending jury trials for seven months.

In 2022, there were sometimes more than 100 cases set for trial on the same day, causing mass confusion and forcing prosecutors and defense attorneys to juggle witnesses and experts.

While the backlog of felony cases awaiting first-time trials decreased dramatically during Meadows’ tenure, Clerk of the Court Ryan Butler said that when violation of probation offenses, post-trial motions and re-opened cases are added back into the mix, the “open” caseload is still bloated, at about 1,285.

That is on top of “an additional 23 unserved warrants and 94 unserved bench warrants,” Butler said before the New Year’s holiday.

Sheriff Eric Flowers said the court’s progress has eased overcrowding at the county jail and reduced the number of long-term prisoners requiring costly medical, dental and psychological care, and medications.

“When I took over as sheriff five years ago, our average daily population was over 600. This time last year, we broke under 400, and that’s [due to] a combination of Judge Meadows doing his thing over there and our pre-trial release program.”

Just before the New Year’s holiday that daily census number was 446 prisoners, according to Flowers. The county jail at 41st Street and 43rd Avenue can handle a maximum of 700 prisoners, or 750 in a pinch.

“I’m very happy with 446,” Flowers said last week. “I’d love to see us get back down to 400, or a little less than 400, which is where we were this time last year. But 446 doesn’t stress me out. Once we get into the 600s, that starts getting really expensive, because I’ve got to open additional areas of the jail, and that costs me overtime.”

Numerous notable cases being watched by barrier island residents were disposed of by plea agreement in 2025.

• Orchid resident Elizabeth Jewkes Danielsen was sentenced to 13.75 years for the vehicular homicide of John’s Island resident Christopher Ingraham.

• Summerplace resident Susan Harvey was sentenced to three years in prison plus probation for a traffic crash after the 2021 Ocean Drive Christmas Parade that resulted in the death of former island resident Mary Berrigan.

• Former Holy Cross Catholic Church business manager Deborah True was sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing nearly $700,000 from the church.

• Riomar resident Michael Anthony Gaudiani Sr. was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest plus four years probation for his part in a New Year’s Eve 2023 stabbing incident.

• Indian River Shores resident Andrew Mustapick was sentenced to 15 years in prison for contracting to kill a witness set to testify against him in a bizarre 2021 case involving a teenage “sex slave.”

Meadows took some heat in the press and on social media for light sentences handed down during his tenure, especially in the Gaudiani case. The first-time offender in that case, who stabbed a man in bar, paid a substantial out-of-court civil restitution settlement to the victim but got no jail time. Overall, though, the sentences Meadows handed down were on the harsh side, even to retirees like True and Danielsen.

“Cases do not always go as all would like, but in many cases, folks just don’t have all of the information when they form opinions,” Meadows said.

Judges are routinely moved around within Florida’s 19th Circuit. As Meadows heads to St. Lucie County, Judge Anastasia Norman, the former head of major crimes for State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl, will take over the felony docket in Vero.

Meadows said he would like to rotate back sooner than later.

“I hope to be reassigned back to my hometown,” he said, noting that leaving Vero where he was raised, educated and served in law enforcement before going back to law school was not a great start to the new year for him.