FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ The Broward County public defender's office has asked to withdraw from confessed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz's death penalty case, court records show.
The teen is entitled to half of a nearly $865,000 life insurance policy as of April 23, the court filing shows.
Gordon Weekes, assistant public defender, said, "We have to withdraw."
Weekes said the public defender's office just got new information that Cruz and his brother are to share in the life insurance policy, presumably for their mother, who died unexpectedly of a flu-like illness in November 2017.
The court will have to determine who his new counsel will be, Weekes said.
The public defender's office is appointed in cases in which people are indigent. Someone with $400,000 is not indigent.
It's unclear when or how Cruz, 20, who is locked up in the Broward jail, will get the money.
Weekes said the public defender's office is prohibited from helping him.
The move will throw the criminal case off track. The judge had hoped to begin trial in January.
Cruz has pleaded not guilty to the murders of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High on Valentine's Day 2018.
