Dave Aronberg won’t seek a fourth term as Palm Beach County’s top prosecutor

Dave Aronberg 2
He's one of the most prominent Democrats in the state.

Three-time elected Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg will not be seeking a fourth term, he announced.

Aronberg, also a former state Senator, is one of the state’s most prominent Democrats and hugely popular in the 15th Judicial Circuit that covers Palm Beach County. Elected unopposed in 2016 and 2020, Aronberg lately has been making national TV appearances on CNN and MSNBC.

So far, defense lawyer Gregg Lerman is the only announced candidate for Palm Beach County State Attorney in the 2024 election cycle.

“I love this job and am grateful for the opportunity to serve my community as State Attorney since my first election in 2012,” he said, according to a prepared statement. “Nothing is forever, and this position is not meant to be a lifetime career.”

He said he’s not ready to announce his next move beyond January 2025, when the next State Attorney is sworn in. Nor is he ready to name who he will endorse to succeed him in the role.

Aronberg, who leads a team of 120 prosecutors, has been at the forefront of efforts to clean up the drug-treatment scams that plagued the area in the wake of the opioid crisis. The Sober Homes Task Force he set up netted 115 arrests for patient brokering and insurance fraud. He also convinced the Legislature to adopt laws to stop the drug addiction treatment fraud.

Aronberg graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School with honors. He started his career working closely with Commissioner Bill Nelson, who later became a U.S. Senator, to investigate insurance companies who refused to honor World War II-era insurance policies sold to Holocaust victims. Aronberg investigated the laundering of terrorist assets during his tenure as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department under two presidential administrations, according to his official biography.

He became the youngest member elected to the State Senate in 2002, where he served until 2010.

In 2010, Aronberg returned to the Florida Attorney General’s Office as a Special Prosecutor for prescription drug trafficking. In his role as the Attorney General’s “Drug Czar,” Aronberg led an anti-pill mill initiative that put a stop to the policies that made the state a destination for so-called “doctor shopping.”

Anne Geggis

Anne Geggis is a South Florida journalist who began her career in Vermont and has worked at the Sun-Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Gainesville Sun covering government issues, health and education. She was a member of the Sun-Sentinel team that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Parkland high school shooting. You can reach her on Twitter @AnneBoca or by emailing [email protected].


4 comments

  • Florida needs a quality governor

    June 12, 2023 at 11:50 am

    he should be Florida ‘s next governor.

    • Ruth H

      June 13, 2023 at 11:09 am

      I agree

      • Jeffrey J Ward

        June 13, 2023 at 2:34 pm

        I am a forty year Florida and retired Palm Beach County attorney. I would campaign for Dave Aronberg for Governor and contribute to his campaign. But if he wants to be a Judge on the Federal 11th Circuit, all he has to do is volunteer.

  • Dont Say FLA

    June 12, 2023 at 11:50 am

    People are saying Jeffrey Epstein faked his own death and is currently employed at Disney World in Orlando as the person in the Goofy costume which is why Ron DeSantis talks so much about Disney sexualizing children blah blah blah… it’s all Jeffrey Epstein and Ron’s dead friend who had the HUGE pair of … Taylor Swift tickets.

Comments are closed.


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