By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
The Broward Sheriff’s Public Records Unit appears to have broken state law by hiding BSO’s personnel records about Miami-Dade sheriff’s candidate Jem “James” Reyes – Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony’s favored candidate in the Miami-Dade sheriff’s race.
The only question: Which state law was broken? More on that in a moment.
Reyes’s latest campaign report, filed Friday afternoon, disclosed that Tony’s political action committee, Broward First, gave another $100,000 to Reyes’s Safe & Secure PAC. Tony, a Democrat who has only a weak Independent opponent in the Nov. 5 general election, Charles Whatley, now has contributed a total of $250,000 to boost Reyes.
Tony did not respond to an emailed request for comment on Saturday.
Records previously obtained by Florida Bulldog show that in 2019, shortly after Tony promoted Reyes to colonel and named him to head BSO’s Department of Administration, Reyes played fast and loose with hundreds of thousands of BSO funds to make a purchase sought by Tony. Specifically, Reyes approved spending $750,000 to buy 654 bleeding-control stations and kits from North American Rescue, a South Carolina company where Tony previously worked and later sold its products via his own company, Blue Spear Solutions.
North American was the low bidder at approximately $392,000. By the time the matter got to Reyes for his approval, the cost had swelled to $750,000. Reyes OK’d the deal the day after it landed on his desk, apparently without asking any questions. The FBI later started a bid-rigging investigation, but a friend of Tony’s who then headed the Miami FBI office transferred the case to South Carolina, where it languished. After Special Agent in Charge George Piro retired, the case was returned to Miami, but soon ended again for unknown reasons.
TONY’S PALS ALSO KICK IN TO REYES
Tony appears responsible for additional funds seeking to elect Reyes, currently Miami-Dade’s chief of public safety, as Miami-Dade sheriff.
Election records show that Tony’s wealthy donors – including former Boston Red Sox slugger Maurice “Mo” Vaughn ($39,000), BSO vendor and Saferwatch owner Geno Roefaro ($49,500), and convicted felon and Broward Sheriff’s Advisory Council member Lewis Stahl ($25,000) – have coughed up an additional $113,500 for Reyes. Tony’s command staff, including Col. Oscar Llorena ($2,000) and Major Angelo Cedeno ($5,000), also kicked in more than $11,000.
Reyes’s PAC has now raised $1.85 million, election records show. His Broward connection is responsible for more than one out of every five dollars his PAC has collected. Dozens of contributors with a Broward address, including BSO Undersheriff Nichole Anderson and BSO Col. John Hale and BSO General Counsel Terrence Lynch, also contributed directly to Reyes’s campaign which through Oct. 18 has raised another $257,000.
Reyes, a Democrat, is facing Republican Rosanna “Rosie” Cordero-Stutz in the November election. She is currently assistant director of Investigative Services for the Miami-Dade Police Department. Her PAC, Citizens for a Safer Community, has collected $1.037 million. Her campaign has received another $327,000 in donations.
Back to BSO’s records unit. A request for public records filed Sept. 3 asked the sheriff’s office to provide various public documents about Reyes, who had worked for BSO for 22 years when he resigned in January 2022 to take a job as head of Miami-Dade’s jail system. (Reyes started at BSO as a detention deputy and rose to the rank of colonel.)
The documents sought were copies of any discipline reports, the last five years of Reyes’s employee evaluations, his original employment application, a list of his various job assignments at BSO and a copy of his internal and external training records.
BSO: WE CAN’T FIND OUR RECORDS ABOUT REYES
This was the records unit’s response: “Based upon the information you have provided, the Broward Sheriff’s Office Public Records Unit has been unable to identify any records responsive to your request. Per our IA [Internal Affairs] division: Kindly advise that all files before 2017 have been destroyed in accordance with FSS [Florida State Statutes] regarding the destruction of records for Law Enforcement Agencies.”
The letter is signed “Broward Sheriff’s Office Public Records Unit.” No individual takes responsibility for its assertions.
BSO’s response was grossly deficient. First, an employee’s job application, evaluations and assignments are all part of his or her personnel file. And the personnel records of all agencies in Florida, law enforcement or not, that participate in the Florida Retirement System, as BSO does, are required to retain their personnel records for a minimum of “25 fiscal years after any manner of separation or termination of employment,” according to Florida’s General Records Schedule. Training records, however, may be disposed of after as little as two years.
Disciplinary records may be kept in an employee’s personnel file and/or maintained separately in the internal affairs unit.
“Final action summaries” of police internal investigations are also required to be retained “as long as the Personnel File.” Here’s how the state’s schedule explains it: “Final action summaries involve accusations of “employee or officer misconduct and/or violation of law enforcement agency regulations or orders, state or federal statutes, or local ordinances. Investigations may also cover discharge of firearms or other use of physical force. The completed investigation file is scheduled separately based on the nature of the outcome (sustained formal, sustained informal, or not sustained/unfounded/exonerated). The statement of final action may take many forms, including a memorandum, correspondence, logs or reports.”
Thus, the outcome of an investigation dictates the minimum length of time that the complete IA file must be maintained. Records of investigations that are formally sustained must be kept for at least five years after the final disposition. For investigations that are informally sustained the retention time is three years; investigations that are not sustained/unfounded/exonerated must be kept at least one year.
INCOMPETENT OR LYING?
All this adds up to trouble for BSO.
Perhaps the person at the public records unit who responded to the request was hopelessly inept, couldn’t find Reyes’s personnel file and needs to be replaced.
But if incompetence does not explain what happened, then either the public records unit lied about not having any of the requested personnel records or BSO disposed of those records in violation of state law.
The same is true of BSO employees in its Internal Affairs division who improperly destroyed “all files before 2017.” Either they are lying to avoid releasing Reyes’s records, or they broke the law by improperly disposing of records – including IA’s final action summaries – involving Reyes and other BSO deputies who were investigated.
If it was a lie, why? Were orders given to withhold Reyes’s records?
It’s a crime in Florida to deliberately withhold public records. Chapter 119 of Florida’s Statutes gives every person the right, with certain exceptions, to inspect and copy all state, county and municipal records and requires agencies to provide access to them. Any agency employee who “willfully and knowingly violates any of the provisions of this chapter commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.”
Florida Statute 257.36 vests the Department of State’s Division of Library and Information Services with the duty to establish and administer Florida’s records management program.
The division establishes safeguards against unauthorized or unlawful removal or loss of records, makes “continuous surveys of recordkeeping operations” and can “initiate appropriate action to recover records removed unlawfully or without authorization,” the statute says.
“A public record may be destroyed or otherwise disposed of only in accordance with retention schedules established by the division,” it cautions.
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