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.”
