Last week, a grand jury issued a “No True Bill” in the investigation of Escambia County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s text messages that were stolen off the county’s server.
On his blog, Bergosh wrote:
“Tuesday of this past week I was fully and completely exonerated of doing anything illegal associated with the news articles and allegations surrounding the stolen and improperly released county files and text messages that had been used as some sort of “evidence” I violated the Florida Sunshine Law.
I was investigated for months and months over allegations I did things I did not do— and accusations that I committed crimes I did not commit.”
The stolen emails were allegedly given to former county employee Jonathan Owens, who ran against Bergosh in 2010. The same emails were given to County Clerk Pam Childers and the News Journal.
We’ve heard the Childers has been bragging she would get several commissioners removed from office – not this time.
Jeff Bergosh will be my guest on “Real News” at 7 a.m.
Doug Underhill didn’t fail to turn over hundreds of public records, FYI. It was *thousands*. Around 13 thousand failures to fulfill public record, if memory serves. All in black and white, on the federal docket, in front of God and everybody.
No indictment.
So maybe now that a bunch of people in the SAO have investigating a nothing burger off their hands, they could find a little time to prosecute the crime-ridden past D2 office?
Again, A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS RULED DOUG UNDERHILL INTENTIONALLY WITHELD THOUSANDS OF PUBLIC RECORDS. Jonathan Owens has bragged about his crimes to multiple media outlets. Seriously, what gives?
I personally turned over a half dozen public record requests to the SAO that Doug outright refused to fill–they even had my requests logged in their PRR database as “zero” importance. Larry Downs and I sat and discussed this with two separate prosecutors, first Greg Marcille and then Tom Williams. Over and over, they put us off on why they couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything about it.
WHY aren’t these blatant crimes prosecuted when brought to the SAO on a silver platter? Why allow your office to be led by the nose by a bunch of deranged local Facebook lunatics?
Maybe this is why Mike Kohler refuses to fulfill my public records request with him, and leaves it to the County Attorney. Because when we don’t vigorously uphold our laws of transparency, and instead treat Sunshine and public record statutes as political baubles to either bat around for the enjoyment of social media cranks, or let gather camouflage under the dust of years in the corner, bad actors chip away at our rule of law little by little. And along with that war of attrition against our rule of law goes not just their accountability, but the public’s trust.
Boy would it be nice to get a little of that trust back.