On March 8, the Florida Commission on Ethics will consider the probable cause finding regarding a complaint against former County Commissioner Doug Underhill’s aide, Jonathan Owens.
Last summer, the county learned that Owens had given the attorneys for Dr. Laura Edler, who is in litigation against the county, records from Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s cell phone stolen off the county’s server. In February 2022, Bergosh had asked county staff to download the records off his cell phone so that he could preserve them.
In early August 2023, Owens said on the radio that an anonymous source had left a thumb drive in his county office. He left the county in November 2022 and kept the drive. Somehow, the records also ended up in the hands of the Pensacola News Journal, which has selectively published some of them.
Owens refused to give a statement to ethics investigators.
Findings from the Advocate’s Recommendation:
Based on the characterization of the information and the case law discussed above, all the personal information contained on the thumb drive is not a public record, was unavailable to the general public, and would not be produced by a public agency in response to a public records request.
In sum, Respondent (Owens) was a public employee when he gained information by reason of his official position, the information was not available to members of the general public, and such information was disclosed or used with an intent to secure a personal gain or benefit for Respondent (Owens) and/or Dr. Edler and her attorneys.
All the elements to prove a violation have been met. Therefore, based on the evidence before the Commission, I recommend that the Commission find probable cause to believe that Respondent (Owens) violated Section 112.313(8) Florida Statutes.
Documents:
3_23231 Report of Investigation
2_23231 Waiver of Confidentiality
1_23231 Advocate’s Recommendation
Note: Owens’ boss, Doug Underhill, was also found guilty of a series of ethics violations, unrelated to Owens’ case. The board voted 6-1 for Gov. DeSantis to remove him from office in October 2022. DeSantis chose not to act on the removal. Underhill left office the following month, after deciding he wouldn’t seek a third term the previous year.
And the dingbats over on ECW are losing their minds, with the mother of all local loonies claiming this is all a conspiracy to “destroy” the Underhills, their family, and everybody in their orbit.
Um, no. For my part, I walked to the podium at a BCC meeting in spring of 2018 to demand the BCC do whatever they could to reign Doug in after the Parkland shootings. I had no idea Randy Thompson would be there asking for censure. From that meeting on, I stated publicly over the course of nearly 5 years–at every BCC meeting, on my Facebook, via email, and to any and every person I spoke with politically–that I wasn’t going to give up working every day to expose that D2 office until Doug was off the dais and he was held accountable for some small fraction of his crimes. MANY meetings I looked him right in the face and told him he was a crook and he should already be in jail. How that amounts to a secret conspiracy is beyond me.
I warned Jonathan Owens that if he continued to do Doug’s bidding, at some point Doug was going to throw him under the bus and leave him holding the bag on one of their MANY illegalities and unethical activities. We texted back and forth about it, I left him a voicemail telling him basically that his career and his relationships were still salvageable, but not for much longer. Not surprisingly, he and Doug altered the audio and released it to ECW (thanks for the confirmation of the litmus that there is no good cop in that team, Derp and Derpier), and Jonathan has landed exactly where I told him he’d be: under multiple investigations, having committed clearly illegal activity, friendless but for social media misfits and whack jobs, and in a heap of trouble.
Trying to get adults held accountable for their crimes, their unethical activities, and their horrendous behavior isn’t “destroying” them. Whatever ill effects they’ve experienced from the fruits of their total lack of morality and their hardened, unrepentant abuse of people and systems, they’ve brought on themselves whole cloth. It won’t ever amount to the sum total of damage they have done other people and this community during their reign of terror.
For any dupes that actually believe what Jacqueline is shoveling over there, heads up that she’s lying when she pretends that all of the text messages are in the redacted messages the County put out. She knows better. But she’s counting on enough brain dead people who can’t tell the difference between 60,000 and 1600 to follow her lead.
Just remember, friends don’t let friends get drunk on disinformation. And no, Jacqueline, it’s not “going to be fine.” He has boasted about committing crimes. Thank God there’s one agency at least that’s serious about holding the two of them accountable so far.