ORANGE MANSLAUGHTER CASE HIGHLIGHTED BY FLORIDA AG DELAYED AS SUSPECT SEEKS NEW LAWYER

A Winter Garden man accused of accidentally fatally shooting his 32-year-old friend in 2024 withdrew his no contest plea Friday after raising concerns about his attorney.

Savion Lambert’s decision in court came just days after Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell was criticized by Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier for the deal.

Lambert, who was 21 at the time of the shooting, was expected to be sentenced to a 20-year prison term for manslaughter in the killing of Carlos Perez, a father of two daughters whose family sat in the gallery waiting to speak against the deal before Circuit Judge Eric Netcher in Orange County.

He was also expected to plead no contest to violating his probation in an earlier and unrelated carjacking case that caught Uthmeier’s attention. But in a last-minute twist, Netcher withdrew the plea in court after Lambert accused his attorney, Tracy Kagan, of misleading him on the deal’s terms and threatening to abandon the case if he decided to take it to trial.

“This has left me feeling confused, unsupported and unable to trust that my interests are being fully represented,” Lambert, now 23, told Netcher in asking that the hearing be postponed.

Netcher agreed to postpone the case while Lambert seeks new counsel. His next hearing is scheduled for June 1.

Outside the courthouse, Perez’s family, led by his sister Daliana Perez, welcomed the move as they long advocated for a longer sentence and upgraded charges. Lambert was originally arrested by Winter Garden police for second-degree murder.

“I am so happy with the outcome,” Perez told reporters. “If it wasn’t for Mr. Lambert, [Carlos] would be alive today. … I want him to get 50 years-plus in jail for the dirt that he did, for the pain that he caused us all.”

While police in May 2024 said the shooting was the result of negligence, they justified the murder charge citing “Lambert’s clear disregard for Perez’s life following the shooting.”

According to an affidavit, Lambert and Perez were drinking with friends inside the car outside of Lambert’s apartment. At one point, Lambert began waving around a handgun with a green laser attached to it when a shot was fired, striking Perez in his neck. Perez was left on the street as Lambert fled the scene, and the gun used to kill him was hidden nearby.

Days after Lambert’s arrest, then-State Attorney Andrew Bain filed charges of manslaughter, tampering with evidence and providing false information to law enforcement. On Tuesday, when the case was scrutinized by Uthmeier, Worrell said the charges fit with the facts of the shooting, which she described as an accident.

In 2022, Lambert was sentenced to probation as a “youthful offender” after pleading no contest to a carjacking committed when he was 18, a deal that came from Judge Elaine Barbour after Kagan, his attorney in that case, circumvented prosecutors in a move allowed under Florida law.

The deal, among others like it, came into question Tuesday after Uthmeier posted a video to X blasting Worrell for lenient youthful offender sentences in four separate cases. One other case, involving dozens of charges of possessing child sexual abuse material against a 19-year-old, like with Lambert’s carjacking, resulted in a probation sentence following a deal with a judge.

Two other cases, one involving murder and another a manslaughter, were agreed to by prosecutors, who Worrell said accurately considered the facts of the case.

In Lambert’s case, Uthmeier criticized the 20-year prison sentence he was set to receive Friday, which Worrell countered was longer than what he would have gotten had he gone to trial.

Still, Carlos Perez’s family opposed the deal.

“Mr. Lambert is a coward, that’s why he ran,” Daliana Perez said. “If he was a friend and it was an accident, why didn’t he stay, why didn’t he call for help, why didn’t he take him to the hospital himself while he got 911 on the phone? No, he decided to run, to hide the evidence so doesn’t get caught — how is that an accident?”

She also accused Worrell’s office of not contacting them, even ahead of Friday’s hearing.

“I had to basically look for the information myself,” Perez said.

After this story published, the State Attorney’s Office issued a statement calling Perez’s comments about the lack of communication “false.”

“Case notes show constant communication with the family and the State Attorney’s Office since May of 2024, covering a period when State Attorney Worrell was not even in office,” the statement read.

A previous version of this article misstated the name of the judge who handled Savion Lambert’s 2022 carjacking case.