Commissioners Approve Owens’ Full $124,704 Legal Bill

County Government

The Escambia County Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 Thursday night to pay commissioner aide Jonathan Owens’ full $124,704 in attorney’s fees and costs, turning aside County Attorney Alison Rogers’ recommendation to trim the bill for an hourly rate above the county’s own policy cap and for a lawsuit Owens lost.

Commissioner Lumon May cast the lone no vote after warning colleagues they were setting a political precedent they wouldn’t extend to ordinary residents. Commissioner Steve Stroberger made the motion to pay the bill as billed; Board Chair Ashlee Hofberger passed the gavel and offered to second it, but Commissioner Mike Kohler stepped in and seconded it himself. Commissioner Steven Barry stayed out of the debate entirely but joined Stroberger, Kohler, and Hofberger in the majority.

The Bill

The fees stem from former Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s 2023 ethics complaint against Owens, who served as an aide to Commissioner Doug Underhill, over Owens’ handling of a data download from Bergosh’s personal cell phone. The Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause and referred the case to the Division of Administrative Hearings, then dismissed the complaint in July 2026 after its own advocate moved to dismiss—not on the merits Bergosh had alleged, but on other grounds.

Owens’ attorney, Dennis Green, billed the county $395 an hour, well above the $250-an-hour ceiling in the county’s 2014 legal-representation policy, and included roughly $11,000 in fees tied to a separate lawsuit he filed on Owens’ behalf in Leon County Circuit Court attacking the Ethics Commission’s jurisdiction. That suit was unsuccessful.

Rogers’ Recommendation

Rogers told commissioners she could support paying Owens for successfully defending the ethics complaint itself, but not for the Leon County case, since Owens lost it and it fell outside what the county policy anticipated the county would fund. She also recommended capping the rate at $250 an hour instead of the $395 Green billed.

Green rejected both cuts. He argued the Leon County suit was necessary to protect Owens’ Fifth Amendment rights against being compelled to answer discovery in the ethics case, and that $395 was reasonable because the county had already paid him that same rate, under a court order, in an earlier related case.

“If you think that I’m going to sit here and let you cut my bill by $11,000, you might want to ask your attorney on day 91 when I file my lawsuit what a proposal for settlement is.”
—Dennis Green, attorney for Jonathan Owens

Where the Commissioners Stood

Steve Stroberger said he didn’t want the county paying legal fees routinely, but concluded the county should pay this one because Owens was an employee forced to defend himself over the ethics complaint. He made the motion for the full amount and held firm on it even after Kohler pressed him to knock off the disputed $11,000.

• Note: Owens worked on Stroberger’s campaign, and he is Stroberger’s appointee to the Planning Board.

Mike Kohler was openly conflicted. He told Owens directly that Owens had lied to him about how he’d obtained Bergosh’s data—”You didn’t get the thing in your office… you lied to me”—but said that didn’t change the fact that Owens had prevailed in the ethics case. Kohler pushed hardest on the money, questioning the $395 rate against the county’s $250 cap and backing Rogers’ recommendation to strip the Leon County fees. He seconded Stroberger’s motion anyway, saying he was “sick of litigation,” but used the floor to call publicly for the board to update what he called an outdated policy.

Lumon May was the sharpest critic of the whole proceeding. He said he had been investigated himself—taken before a grand jury and a state attorney—and paid his own legal fees, three or four lawyers’ worth, without asking the county to reimburse him. He argued the board was litigating a fee dispute in open session instead of handling it through counsel, calling it bad precedent, and contrasted the board’s willingness to pay Owens’ six-figure bill with its treatment of jail detainees whose far smaller fee and settlement requests, he said, get turned down.

“It’s hypocritical.”
—Commissioner Lumon May

Steven Barry did not speak during the discussion. He voted with the majority to approve the full payment.

Ashlee Hofberger, chairing the meeting, pressed Rogers on why the matter couldn’t be handled in a closed-door shade session the way litigation normally is; Rogers explained the county isn’t currently in active litigation with Owens or Green, so the shade-meeting exception doesn’t apply. Hofberger also noted the board had paid Bergosh’s own legal fees in a past matter. She offered to pass the gavel and second Stroberger’s motion herself, but Kohler seconded it first. She voted with the majority.