By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony violated a state law regarding the state’s “minimum qualifications” to be a law enforcement officer by failing to maintain “good moral character,” but shouldn’t lose his license to be a cop, a state administrative judge ruled today.
Judge James Kilbride’s decision, in the form of a recommendation to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, recommended instead that Tony receive a “written reprimand, an 18-month period of probationary status and a requirement that (he) complete Commission-approved ethics training.”
Tony was accused of submitting eight applications for a driver’s license between 2002 and February 1, 2019 – a month after he was sworn in – when he falsely answered no when questioned if his driving privilege had ever been revoked, suspended and denied in any other state. Tony’s license had been previously suspended in Pennsylvania.
Judge Kilbride dismissed all of the other charges against Tony “as not being proven by clear and convincing evidence.”
In June 2022, a three-person panel of the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission found “probable cause” to believe the allegations against the sheriff were true and that his police license should be revoked.
The case now goes back to the commission for a final determination.
Tony refused to be interviewed by FDLE agents when they conducted a broad investigation of him that began six days after Florida Bulldog exclusively reported in May 2020 that as a 14-year-old in Philadelphia in 1993 Tony shot and killed a young man. Tony was charged with murder, but was acquitted in juvenile court. All court recrods in the case are sealed.
Tony’s version of the killing was that he acted in self-defense. During the FDLE probe, agents obtained Philadelphia police reports of interviews with witnesses who contradicted Tony and described the shooting as an execution.
Tony did not disclose the killing to Gov. Ron DeSantis before the governor appointed him as sheriff in January 2019 to replace Scott Israel, who gained notoriety during the fallout of the Parkland school killings.
Tony’s lack of candor about his arrest for murder, his statements under oath that he did not have his case sealed and certain other instances of his alleged lies he told never made it to Judge Kilbride for consideration. They were dropped as either lacking sufficient evidence or barred by the statute of limitations.
A prosecutor in Fort Myers, where Tony’s case was transferred after Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor asked DeSantis to remove him, found one “potentially viable” criminal charge against Tony – one that FDLE agents had recommended should lead to a felony charge of “false affidavit perjury.” It was not charged, however.
That was the same charge that Judge Kilbride sustained today, albeit on a lower standard of proof “clear and convincing evidence” – Tony’s application for a replacement driver’s license in February 2019 when he answered “no” when asked about where his license had been previously suspended.
Tony still faces another hearing before another administrative judge who will make a recommendation regarding a recommendation by the Florida Ethics Commission on essentially the same matters. That hearing before Judge June McKinney is to be held June 26-27.
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