‘Unacceptable!’ Florida AG calls out Monique Worrell over 4-year sentence for murderer

ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier spoke out on Tuesday over a year after a man convicted of murder was sentenced to just four years in prison.

Uthmeier issued a statement on Tuesday morning, referring to a case out of the Orlando area involving now-19-year-old Marcus Anttwain Anderson.

According to court records, Anderson was arrested in December 2024 after a teen was shot and killed in Orange County. Deputies said the shooting happened late at night in the 10100 block of Chesham Drive.

At the time, he was only 18 years old.

Originally, Anderson was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm, which Uthmeier claimed should have made him eligible for the death penalty.

[RELATED: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier calls out state attorney over murder sentencing]

However, Anderson was ultimately found guilty of second-degree murder, and the robbery charge was dropped. He was sentenced earlier this year to only four years in prison as part of a “youthful offender sentence,” court records reveal.

In response, Uthmeier took aim at Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell.

“She keeps handing out sweetheart plea deals to violent criminals,” he wrote. “This neglect of duty must end!”

It’s not the first time that Uthmeier has put Worrell in his sights, though.

Just last year, he criticized Worrell when he claimed she had given a man a “free walk in the park” after the man was allegedly caught masturbating near children at a public splash pad in Apopka.

“It is an open-shut case. Why would you not bring charges?” Uthmeier stated at the time. “You’ve got video evidence, witness testimony; you’ve got this dad that saw this feet away, made sure all the other kids were going to be safe, handled it correctly. Justice needs to be served.”

[RELATED: Florida AG, Orange-Osceola state attorney take jabs at one another]

Worrell later responded to the Florida attorney general, claiming that she had no personal knowledge of the situation at the time. However, she added that the attorney who did handle it eventually determined charges couldn’t be brought after interviewing the victim’s father.

“(The father) confirmed that the child did not see anything and wasn’t aware of what was happening,” she said. “(The attorney) explained that based on the language of the statute, he could not charge the charge of exhibition — which would have been the felony in the case — and he also explained that because no other adult saw the defendant’s penis, that he could not charge any of the misdemeanor crimes of exposure."

[RELATED: Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell responds to AG’s criticisms]

News 6 reached out to Worrell’s office for comment regarding Uthmeier’s latest criticism. Her office responded with the following statement:

“Appointed Attorney General Uthmeier is well within his rights to have opinions about sentencing outcomes. What he is not within his rights to do is misrepresent how the law works.

The Youthful Offender Act is unambiguous: it is the court, not the prosecutor, that determines whether a defendant is sentenced as a youthful offender. The Appointed Attorney General accurately cites the governing statute in his letter to my office, that courts may sentence as a youthful offender any person who is at least 18 years of age, found guilty or pled nolo contendere to a felony before the defendant turned 21 years of age, and has not previously been classified as a youthful offender. He also accurately notes that youthful offender sentencing is not a fundamental right, and that a lower court is under no obligation to impose it unless the court believes such a sentence is appropriate. He knows this. That language is not incidental. It is dispositive. The sentencing authority rests with the judiciary, not my office.

Mr. Uthmeier has highlighted the exact issues I have been raising for years — the missing middle that exists in our system for violent juvenile offenders. It would be far more productive if, instead of using his platform to target me, Mr. Uthmeier used his platform to advance the legislation I have proposed to bring greater accountability within the Department of Juvenile Justice for juveniles who commit violent crime.

Because of the lack of accountability in juvenile court, prosecutors are often left with no option but to charge these individuals as adults. Youthful offender sentencing is the only middle ground that exists between juvenile and adult sentencing, and it exists precisely because the legislature recognized that gap.

My office’s role is to pursue justice within the bounds of the law and in partnership with the court. We present the facts. We advocate for outcomes that reflect the gravity of the offense and the needs of the community. But the court is an independent institution, and its sentencing discretion is not subject to prosecutorial override. That separation is not a loophole. It is a cornerstone of how our legal system is designed to function. While the Attorney General sits on social media offering critiques, this office is on the ground, working alongside community partners to identify real solutions to the public safety challenges his commentary does nothing to solve.

Although the Attorney General has directed his outrage toward me, he is fully aware that assistant state attorneys cannot impose youthful offender sentences. Only the court can do that. Upon even a cursory review of the cases he cited, at least two were resolved by a plea to the bench, meaning the sentence was decided by the judge, not through any plea resolution offered by my office. That is not an asterisk; that is the entire point.

In the case of Julian Vicente, that case was a plea to the bench, meaning the sentence was not the product of a plea agreement negotiated by my office. It was a sentence imposed directly by the court, at the court’s discretion, under the court’s independent authority. When the Attorney General demands that I answer for that outcome, he is asking me to answer for a decision I did not make. The sentencing judge made that decision. Florida law gave the judge that authority. And the Attorney General, who has read the statute, knows exactly where that authority resides.

The Attorney General referenced Savion Lambert in a video posted to his social media accounts, though notably, he did not include his case in his formal letter to the office. That omission speaks volumes. In 2022, Mr. Lambert received a youthful offender sentence — not through any plea offered by this office, but through a plea to the bench, a sentence imposed entirely at the court’s discretion. Most recently, when Mr. Lambert faced new charges in connection with a shooting, the evidence established that the shooting was accidental, not incidental. He pled to 20 years — holding him to greater accountability than the scoresheet required, because the facts and public safety interests demanded it. The Attorney General cannot post videos on social media selectively presenting cases that serve his narrative while omitting the facts that dismantle it.

In the case of Marcus Anderson, the Attorney General omits another critical fact: Stand Your Ground was a potential defense in this matter. Prosecutors do not operate in a vacuum. Every charging and plea decision is made in the context of the full evidentiary record, including the legal defenses available to the defendant. A Stand Your Ground claim materially affects the calculus of what a jury may or may not do at trial. The Attorney General is fully aware of how this works, as just last year, he vehemently pushed for this same defense to be used as a protective mechanism against a woman who murdered someone following a road rage dispute. His decision to leave that out is not an oversight; it is a distortion.

I have spent years identifying the accountability gap that exists between juvenile court and adult sentencing and proposing solutions to close it. I will not accept responsibility for sentences I did not impose, in cases decided by the court, under a statute that explicitly vests that discretion in the judiciary. The Youthful Offender Act exists because the legislature made a deliberate policy choice that young people accused of crimes deserve the court’s consideration for an alternative sentencing path. That is not a loophole; it is the law. If the Attorney General takes issue with that, his remedy is at the legislature, not my inbox.

If he shares my concern about the juvenile accountability gap in violent cases, I welcome his legislative support in workable solutions to the missing middle."

State Attorney Monique Worrell