In May, Administrative Law Judge G.W. Chisenhall heard the State Commission on Ethics case against Escambia County Commissioner Doug Underhill. The attorney for Underhill and the state yesterday submitted their recommended orders for the judge to consider.
Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Miller, the advocate for the ethics commission, asked that Judge Chisenhall that Underhill be removed from office for violating Florida Statutes sections 112.313(6), 122.313(8), 112.3148(3), 112.3148(4), and 112.3148(8).
Mark Herron, Underhill’s attorney, recommended his client “be subject to a public censure and reprimand” for violating sections 112.31348(4) and 112.3148(8).
The attorneys disagreed on whether the state proved Underhill:
- violated Section 112.313(6) or Section 112.313(8) with respect to the release of “shade meeting” transcripts;
- violated Section 112.3148(3) by soliciting a gift from a lobbyist or the principal of a lobbyist;
- violated Section 112.3148(8) by failing to file a Form 9 “Quarterly Gift Disclosure” disclosing a gift of legal services having a value in excess of $100 from the Clark Partington law firm; and
- violated Section 112.3148(8) by failing to file a Form 9 “Quarterly Gift Disclosure” disclosing travel expenses and shipping costs having a value in excess of $100 from the Pensacola Sports Authority.
Herron agreed that the commissioner violated Section 112.3148(4) by accepting a gift having a value in excess of $100 from the principal of a lobbyist, and he failed to timely file Form 9 “Quarterly Gift Disclosures” and/or to disclose a gift to his legal defense fund from Richard Andres.
He listed as reasons why Underhill show be given a less severe penalty:
- Underhill included the donation from Mr. Hemmer to his legal defense fund on his Form 9 disclosure for the quarter ending December 2019.
- Also, the evidence indicated that Underhill’s failure to include the donation from Mr. Hemmer to his legal defense fund on his Form 9 disclosure resulted from an error in transposing the information from his records to the Form 9 attachment.
Judge Chisenhall has 30 days to render his final order.
Wendy Underhill is claiming on social media that they have to be off their River Road property shortly, and put their remaining stuff out onto the lawn for free today.
Question: if Doug no longer lives in the district, doesn’t he have to step down from his commissionership immediately?
There’s one way to get out of the governor suspending you, if I’m correct about that. Queue the sob stories on the next bankruptcy…
All of it needs to be back dated and not effective from the date of the ruling. He prolonged these for as long as he possibly could thereby not fulfilling his responsibilities to the community and continued his reign of misdoings rather than getting back on track.
Well now. Sorry for the back to back comments, Rick, but this is shaping up to be a pretty good day.
Underhill is nothing more than a two bit charlatan and crook. Beyond being removed from office, he deserves to be behind bars. For a *lifetime* of grifting across numerous locales.
When the best defense your own attorney can give you is that you’re only guilty on some of the counts–think about that, Douggites.
Thank God that with all the other challenges this country and community are facing, we may be seeing an end to his rein of terror here, along with the final exposure of his buffoonish ECW cult of personality. That man and his minions have damaged so many people’s lives in this community, and are an absolute cancer to any reasonable dialogue towards progress.
Hopefully the administrative judge will see right through Doug’s attorney offering up this split the baby solution. It’s long past time that this scourge be removed from any impact on anybody and anything.