Gregory Tony’s ethics woes that have plagued his tenure as Broward’s top law enforcement officer for years could finally reach something of a conclusion this week.
The Florida Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission (CJSTC) is scheduled to rule Thursday on a judge’s urging that Tony, the county’s Sheriff since 2019, be reprimanded for failing to disclose a prior driver’s license suspension.
Administrative Judge Robert Kilbride said in May that Tony should be placed on an 18-month probationary status, reprimanded in writing and compelled to undergo ethics training. The recommendation came about a month after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) called on Kilbride to suspend Tony’s law enforcement certification for six months, followed by a year’s probation.
The CJSTC’s agenda for the Thursday meeting has the item concerning Tony under “exception to recommended order,” which likely refers to a formal written objection to Kilbride’s proposed punishment.
At issue was that Tony did not disclose when he was applying for a driver’s license in Florida that his driver’s licenses had been suspended in Pennsylvania in 1998.
A 2022 FDLE complaint said Tony failed to report the suspension in several subsequent applications between 2007 and 2019, when Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him Sheriff.
FDLE Assistant General Counsel Andrew Digby wrote that Tony violated the public trust, calling the Sheriff’s falsehoods “an act involving moral turpitude” by an official who “is inherently held to a higher standard.”
Tony has repeatedly denied he intentionally withheld the information.
“On my driver’s license applications, I’ve said ‘yes’ a few times (and) omitted and missed one or two here and there,” he acknowledged during a 2022 radio show.
Additionally that year, the Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause that Tony used his office corruptly when he failed to disclose on official documents that he was arrested as a minor for killing a man.
The panel determined Tony did not tell the whole truth during the hiring process for his employment with the Coral Springs Police Department, when completing a notarized form submitted to the FDLE while serving as Sheriff, and when applying to renew his driver’s license while serving as a law enforcement officer.
The driver’s license case is the first to reach a ruling stage. The process began in July 2023 after Dean Register, FDLE’s Director of Criminal Justice Professionalism, filed a complaint against Tony for allegedly making false statements eight times while applying for a driver’s license.
The homicide disclosure case, meanwhile, began in September 2022. Tony was found not guilty of murder after witnesses failed to testify. But later, he signed an FDLE affidavit asserting, under oath, that he’d never had any criminal records sealed or expunged. His juvenile court records for the shooting had been sealed.
Tony, a Democrat, comfortably won re-election in November with a two-thirds share of the vote, easily outpacing Independent Party candidate Charles Whatley for a second four-year term.
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