A Broward County man who was caught on video brandishing a gun and yelling the n-word at a group of black teens on bicycles on a Brickell bridge more than four years ago, avoided prison time Tuesday with a plea deal.
Mark Bartlett, 55, potentially faced decades in prison if convicted. Instead, he pleaded guilty to a hate crime and aggravated assault and also agreed not to possess a firearm for a decade, 300 hours of community service and to take anger management classes and racial sensitivity training.
In exchange, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Alberto Milian granted Bartlett a withhold of adjudication, which means Bartlett will avoid a formal conviction but still can be sentenced to probation.
Present at the hearing in the Miami-Dade criminal courthouse were Kiadanys Cruz, Deante Joseph and their attorney Marwan Porter. Cruz and Joseph, teens at the time of the incident in January 2019, were both on bicycles when Bartlett approached with his weapon during a protest that blocked traffic.
Before the judge and victims and as a condition of his plea, Bartlett apologized for his conduct, admitting his words were hateful.
“Obviously they are accepting the apology that was given and hoping it’s sincere,” Porter said. “He pleaded guilty to a hate crime. And that, in and of itself, speaks volumes. It’s no different than a jury convicting him guilty.”
Kiadanys and Cruz have filed a separate civil lawsuit against Bartlett that Porter said he hopes to settle before it reaches court.
Batlett’s attorney Bruce Lehr said his client was looking at a sentence of between 6 1/2 and 55 years. But with Tuesday’s agreement, instead will serve 10 years of probation.
“He apologized for any hurt or harm he caused by using the language he used,” Lehr said. “This would not have gone down without victim approval.”
The standoff between Bartlett and his wife and a group of mostly Black teens on bicycles happened on Jan. 21, 2019. The group was blocking the Brickell Bridge while protesting the lack of affordable housing in Miami, in a spinoff of the “Wheels Up Guns Down” movement that has become prevalent during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Bartlett and his fiancee, Dana Scalione, were stuck in traffic and grew angry. VIdeo taken from a bystander showed Bartlett yelling “n---rs suck!” three times and him displaying a handgun.
During a court hearing in August of 2021 before Milian denied Bartlett’s self-defense claim, he explained he thought he was “being held hostage” as his SUV was stuck in traffic and was trying to protect his wife. He said he was goaded into using the n-word after being called a “cracker.” He had originally pleaded not guility and had insisted he wasn’t a racist and was “like putting on a show” when he yelled the slur.
This story was originally published May 30, 2023 3:42 PM.
