Tomorrow morning, the Escambia County Board of County Commissioners will discuss former District 2 aide Jonathan Owens’ request for the taxpayers to pay for his attorney fees in the lawsuit the board against him regarding this handling of Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s text messages that were illegally downloaded from the county server (Escambia County v. Jonathan Lee Owens, Alexander Arduini, and Gannett MHC Media, Inc.) and the Florida Commission on Ethics investigation of him.
On Dec. 8, Owens signed legal services contract for the lawsuit with Dennis Green. He signed another contract with the same attorney for the ethics investigation on Dec. 19.
In an email to County Attorney Alison Rogers, Owens said the county should pay this legal bills “because the matter (is) related to my employment.” Read Owens Email 12.7.23.
Owens gave the same reason for the county paying for his attorney fees regarding the ethics investigation. Read Owens Email 12.19.23.
Owens has told the media that someone anonymously gave him a thumb drive with over 50,000 texts from Bergosh’s cell phone – a mixture of personal and county-related. He read the text messages and later gave them to the attorneys of Dr. Rayme Edler, who is suing the county. Owens didn’t report the security breach to the county administrator or Rogers.
District 2 may end up with the most legal bills of any other district in the county’s history. See Underhill post.
