State Attorney's Office to get $1.4M to prosecute domestic violence cases

State Attorney Jeff L. Ashton's Office will receive more than $1.4 million to prosecute domestic violence and human trafficking cases.

Back in February, the News 6 Investigators released a report titled "Domestic violence survivors: Left in the dark," highlighting the shortage of advocates dedicated to the thousands of domestic violence cases in Orange County.

During Tuesday's press conference State Attorney Jeff Ashton called the theme of his remarks "Out of the Shadows," saying, "Domestic violence and human trafficking are two issues that need to be wiped out in Central Florida."

We asked how this additional funding will affect the case load for domestic violence advocates.
"Our advocates case load will decrease because we have more victim advocates available to us, that's always been one of our goals was to add personnel to this matter," said Ashton.

We also asked if this additional funding will help hire more domestic violence advocates.

"This system isn't going to add a lot of advocates to domestic violence. It's going to add dedicated advocates to the human trafficking side. The main thing this gives us in domestic violence is the paralegals. Which is another level of people to work with the victims to try and screen those that will be cooperative and want their cases pursued from the ones that don't," said Ashton.

Several community partners were thanked with plaques including The CARE Center at Northland - A Church Distributed, the Child Advocacy Center, the Florida Abolitionist and Harbor House.