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Florida judge with glaring conflict of interest blocked closure of Alligator Alcatraz.
Story here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/02/alligator-alcatraz-ron-desantis-paul-huck
An appeals court judge who blocked the closure of Ron DeSantis’s controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail is married to a powerful conservative attorney whose law firm has raked in millions of dollars from the Republican Florida governor’s administration, it has been revealed.
Barbara Lagoa authored the 11th circuit court of appeal’s 2-1 ruling last month that paused the Miami district judge Kathleen Williams’s earlier order that the harsh detention facility in the Florida Everglades must be wound down within 60 days. Alligator Alcatraz is now fully operational again, with the Miami Herald reporting this month that hundreds of detainees held there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (Ice) had “dropped off the grid”.
Lagoa is married to Paul Huck, a senior figure in Tallahassee-based Lawson Huck Gonzalez that is “one of Florida’s most politically connected conservative law firms”, according to Prism, an online news outlet that first reported the news.
The law firm, founded in 2023, is tightly aligned to DeSantis’s far-right agenda and has secured more than $10m in state contracts since, WUSF reported. It represents the DeSantis administration in a lawsuit against the retailer Target over its 2023 Pride campaign and was recently hired to assist the search for a new president at the University of West Florida, where DeSantis is engineering a “hostile takeover” of the formerly liberal college.
Barbara Lagoa authored the 11th circuit court of appeal’s 2-1 ruling last month that paused the Miami district judge Kathleen Williams’s earlier order that the harsh detention facility in the Florida Everglades must be wound down within 60 days. Alligator Alcatraz is now fully operational again, with the Miami Herald reporting this month that hundreds of detainees held there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (Ice) had “dropped off the grid”.
Lagoa is married to Paul Huck, a senior figure in Tallahassee-based Lawson Huck Gonzalez that is “one of Florida’s most politically connected conservative law firms”, according to Prism, an online news outlet that first reported the news.
The law firm, founded in 2023, is tightly aligned to DeSantis’s far-right agenda and has secured more than $10m in state contracts since, WUSF reported. It represents the DeSantis administration in a lawsuit against the retailer Target over its 2023 Pride campaign and was recently hired to assist the search for a new president at the University of West Florida, where DeSantis is engineering a “hostile takeover” of the formerly liberal college.
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