The once-daily newspaper anonymously received a file of text messages from County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s personal cell phone that had been stolen from the county’s server.
- Before the News Journal got the file earlier this month, the text messages mysteriously appeared on a thumb drive given – also anonymously – to Jonathan Owens, the aide to former commissioner Doug Underhill. The file was apparently given to Owens between Feb. 1, 2022, and late November 2022.
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- Underhill was found guilty of several ethics violations and went off the board before Gov. Ron DeSantis could act on an Ethics Commission recommendation that the commissioner be removed from office.
- Owens ran unsuccessfully against Bergosh in 2020 GOP primary, coming in third in a four-person race. Owens gave the purloined texts to the attorneys of former county medical officer Dr. Rayme Edler, who is suing the county.
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According to the PNJ, the file’s metadata shows the spreadsheet was created at 6:07 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2022 – after Bergosh had asked the county’s IT department for help. The FBI is investigating the theft.
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Bergosh Comments
On WCOA’s “Real News with Rick Outzen” this morning, Bergosh said, “The thing is, we have to separate the lawsuit that Dr. Rayme Edler has filed against the county from the crime that was committed when the servers were hacked and confidential privilege, personal, private information was stolen from the county.”
- The texts downloaded cover almost three years of personal messages (Oct. 18, 2019, to Feb. 1, 2022), and the commissioner asserted that only a fraction of them were public records. He isn’t sure that the texts on the file given to Owens and the PNJ haven’t been altered.
“This is now political. It’s gonna be weaponized against me and my family politically, which is really a tragedy,” Bergosh said. “I think your listeners will recognize that very, very quickly there’s absolutely nothing that I discuss with my wife that really has any relevance on anything. When I’m talking to my wife – be it via text or on the phone or in my house – those are our conversations. They’re not meant for public consumption.”
Anyone familiar with how Jonathan Owens, Doug Underhill, and their cohort conduct their nasty business knows not to get too excited about that date Jim Little “discovered.” Their m.o. has always been to bury those nuggets in files they distributed illicitly to throw people off the track.
Thankfully, the feds don’t tend to be so naive about that sort of thing; if the investigation doesn’t rise to a federal crime, then the evidence will hopefully still be available to the SAO.
My only question at this point is whether their immediate circle of wanna-be tech “experts” deployed this most recent foray into illegality, or somebody beyond them who actually understands how to even go about covering those tech tracks. (As a reminder, Doug Underhill has already admitted under oath he didn’t hold a single security certification; Jonathan has never pretended to any tech savvy, with his special expertise in the more old-school art of pencil sharpening.)
They’re already back feverishly peddling their mis- and dis-information on ECW, just like the heyday of the public safety “scandal” they brewed up for Underhill. In one of the many instances where it’s impossible to tell whether Jacqueline is simply lost in her sauce or straight-up lying, she’s reporting that the remark about Mr. Spainhower’s output pertained to his official HR work rather than his deposition answers. (They’re also now trying to play it coy about having seen the texts, so somebody must have wised them up to the possible criminality of this.)
Who knows whether JAR has forgotten, never understood the difference, or is lying (or some combination of lunacy and malevolence), so the following is a reminder to people who still care about the truth: Mr. Spainhower wrote the original HR determination that Matt Selover was innocent and his superiors were in fact in violation of federal workplace regulations, and there was ample evidence of targeted harassment. Then Jana Still, Janice Gilley’s “baller,” rolled in to her turn to Get Large at the County ,and threw out his determination.
I’m actually surprised that Jim Little and the PNJ used the anonymous messages, which most likely came from Jonathan and Doug’s camp, just like Doug sent himself the empty dildo box and rerouted it (inserting a fake packing slip in the process), and just like the fake listening device got planted in the environs of Janice Gilley’s office. (It’s all the same game. Seen it out of them a hundred times before over the years.) I’d always been of the understanding that Gannett policy required the PNJ to obtain its official record through the CMR office. Perhaps their policy has changed.
HEADS UP TO THE FUNERAL DIRECTORS GETTING SUED BY A PUBLIC OFFICIAL WHO IS ALSO A LIMITED PUBLIC FIGURE! Have your attorneys familiarize yourself with Edler’s ill-advised and ill-fated defamation lawsuit against me. In particular, see Judge Dannheisser’s final ruling, in which he provides an excellent commentary on the relatively recent threatening of SLAPP law and how they might be employed.
Is it a coincidence that so much of the medical examiner’s strategy mirrors how Edler tried to use a case against me not just to shut me up but also searching for a way through discovery to sue the County for that big taxpayer money?
Cliff’s Notes: Dr. Oleske has already admitted publicly to being a public official (if memory serves, Edler laughably tried to argue against even that). There’s a strong legal case to be made that she is also a limited public figure–loosely speaking, someone who gains celebrity or notoriety by entering into public debate on a controversial subject.
The case number for Edler’s defamation suit against me can be located through the Clerk’s online records, Case No. 2019 CA 001206:
https://public.escambiaclerk.com/BMWebLatest/Home.aspx/Search
As much as I would have preferred not to be sued, once it happened I used the suit to helped demonstrate that the paramedics were being targeted and framed.
The reason that JJ and I fought it as hard as we could at every turn was that I didn’t want one other person to have to experience being dragged through court by a public official attempting to muffle public criticism of her job performance. So I really hope the funeral home directors will make sure their attorneys see this post. Nobody should have to subjected to that nightmare.
Wishing Dr. Oleske the very best on her application over in District 2.
Should be pretty easy for the county to compare the contents of Bergosh’s cell phone with the file it got from the law firm. I assume also that the county server still has the file on it. An interesting issue is who “owns” the data once it was downloaded onto the county server. (Bergosh could have gone to a private computer company to fix his problem.) Bergosh claims that he had county employees download the file because he wanted to preserve public records. Yet, he directed that the county “not” retain a record of his public records. What would have happened if Bergosh had lost his phone while on his overseas trip, or if he had “lost” it when someone wanted to review records he had on the phone but did not want to disclose let alone be reviewed? Is it legal for a county commissioner to retain public records on a private electronic device to which the county has no access? (How widespread is this problem in Escambia County?) What other public records does Bergosh have on a “personal” computer or lying around his house? What’s the risk to the public if Escambia County keeps up its practice of government out-of-the-sunshine? Two weeks ago, County Administrator Wes Moreno said of Bergosh’s public records, “He could have just deleted them.” That may be what they usually do.