ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Standing outside the Orange County Courthouse Friday, Carlos Perez’ family and friends were eager to talk to reporters about the surprise developments that unfolded inside a courtroom minutes earlier.
“This is the best day of my life,” said Daliana Perez. “I am so happy with the outcome.”
Perez proceeded to talk about her brother, Carlos, and what he meant to their family.
“He cared for people,” she said. “He helped people. He had a beautiful heart.”
As she spoke, Perez held a poster displaying pictures of her brother, who was shot and killed in 2024.
Winter Garden police had arrested Savion Lambert, who claimed that the shooting was an accident.
And on Friday, Lambert was slated for sentencing after agreeing to a plea deal--until Judge Eric Netcher broached the last-minute motions Lambert filed the previous day.
“You’re saying you don’t want your lawyer anymore?” Netcher asked Lambert in open court. “And you don’t want the deal? Is that what I’m hearing you saying?”
Sitting next to Tracey Kagan, the lawyer Lambert retained shortly after his arrest, Lambert kept his response brief.
“It’s not the deal,” Lambert answered. “It’s the lawyer.”
Lambert contended that he did not feel he was given enough “time, information, or confidence” to make a decision that was right for him.
Prosecutors said they had struck a plea deal that would have put Lambert in prison for 20 years.
“I want him to get 50 years plus in jail for the dirt that he did,” Daliana Perez said. “For the pain that he caused us all.”
Having always objected to any plea deal, Perez said she now wants the case moved outside of Orange County.
“This is a joke,” she said. “They don’t know how to handle this case. This case has been jeopardized and I want it out.”
The criticism mirrors the sharp words Attorney General James Uthmeier delivered to State Attorney Monique Worrell when he cited Lambert’s cases and others to argue that Worrell mishandled cases involving youthful offenders.
“State Attorney Worrell’s obvious pattern or practice of leniency on violent and deadly criminals must end,” Uthmeier said in a video posted to X this week.
Hours after that video was posted, Worrell held a press conference to push back on Uthmeier’s claims.
On Friday, News 6 reached back out to Worrell and asked her to comment on both Perez’s family criticizing her office and their desire to see the case moved out of Orange County.
A spokesperson sent this response, but did not address the latter part of our question:
“As this remains an ongoing case, the State Attorney’s Office is limited in the information it can provide in response to certain questions. However, several critical facts must be kept in mind.
“In 2022, Mr. Lambert received a youthful offender sentence not through any plea offer made by the current Administration, but through a plea directly to the bench, with the sentence imposed entirely at the court’s discretion.
“More recently, when Mr. Lambert faced new charges in connection with a shooting, those charges had already been reduced from second-degree murder to manslaughter before the current State Attorney took office.
“Ultimately, Mr. Lambert entered a plea resulting in a 20-year sentence — holding him accountable beyond what the sentencing scoresheet required because the facts of the case and the interests of public safety demanded it. That plea has now been withdrawn and the case will proceed accordingly.”