Wearing a red power suit, assistant U.S. attorney Breezye Telfair made one thing clear – she can try a case.
She owned the Harbinger newsroom at Miami Lakes Educational Center (MLEC), much like she owns a courtroom, as she discussed her career and the unconventional path she took to becoming a federal prosecutor.
The Miami Lakes native started her journalism career in high school, when she interned with The Miami Herald and worked as the editor-in-chief of The Trojan Times, Hialeah Miami Lakes Senior High School’s student newspaper. She was sure she would be a journalist.
“I had always had this crazy idea that Neyda and I would change the world,” she said, referring to Neyda Borges, MLEC’s journalism adviser, who went to school with Telfair and worked with her on the school paper.
“I thought we could help further a free thinking society, that we could build an online publication – AOL was big then – one that was free and independent, one that wouldn’t have any outside influences,” she said.
Telfair was well on her way to a career in journalism. She continued to intern, and even worked as a news writer for WSVN channel 7 News. She graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in broadcast journalism, but by graduation she was already law school bound.
For a while, she considered pursuing a career as a sports agent. But, the desire to do good and to make the world better, was stronger.
She became a state prosecutor, and tried cases ranging from homicides to public corruption, before moving on to the federal level because, as she said, “she wanted to be at the top” of her field.
Telfair is a hands on prosecutor, involved in every aspect of a case. She is there for interviews and when evidence is collected. She wants to know everything involving the crime scene and the process, from beginning to end. It is there that her journalism training is most evident. She is persistent. She keeps, as she recalled, “asking questions, researching, digging.”
Ultimately, she said, young people have the opportunity and the responsibility to continue asking questions and searching for truth. The future, she adds, depends on it.