Be Careful What You Publish on Online Facebook Sites.......

If it is, indeed, illegal to merely possess the personal identification information of Florida Citizens by folks who are unauthorized--why has nothing been done about the multiple individuals that have now publicly admitted possession of such data in direct contravention to 817.5685 Florida Statutes?  I am going to ask and find out.......

Earlier today---I saw that some information was published to an online, Facebook chat site that is relevant and pertinant to continuing litigation the county has with several defendants.

Folks have GOT to realize that publishing information that is ILL-GOTTEN and unlawful to possess and disseminate will come with severe consequences.  

Because identity theft and hacking of folks' personal information is an ongoing, vexing problem for prosecutors, law enforcement, and local governments at all levels.

These unlawful disseminations of sensitive data can lead to hacking, identity-theft, and other nefarious actions by bad actors who break the law.  

So I had no choice but to notify Law Enforcement and County Legal about what had occurred.  We will see what happens from here, but this is serious stuff..........  

From my email, today:

"Good Morning Agent XXXXXXXX,

 I wanted to bring to your attention a troubling development from this morning. 

 The attached screenshot illustrates that another individual is in possession of stolen county files that are related to your investigation. (the unredacted version not released by the county under public records requests)

 This portion of these files was published online today by an individual named XXXXX XXXX on the Facebook page “Escambia Citizens Watch.”    

 It is my understanding from our recent correspondence that your investigation is still open and therefore I wanted you to have this information as soon as I got it.  If this individual, Mr. XXXX, has this part of the spreadsheet—he likely has the entire backup of my phone or at a minimum was given something to which he is not entitled by someone who does possess the entire backup unlawfully.

 As you are aware, the county has sued two individuals and one media corporation in civil court to compel the return of these unredacted, non-public record files that were stolen from the county. (which files contain protected, confidential, privileged, and sensitive personal identification information, credit card information, banking information, medical information, pictures of driver’s licenses and passports, and over 100 other examples of protected information on more than one dozen county citizens)

 By copy of this email to the County Attorney and Deputy County Attorney I will request we schedule a shade session to discuss amending our civil complaint to add Mr. XXXX to the suit.

 I am also copying State Attorney Ginger Bowden Madden and Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcile on this email for their awareness and attention.  The county continues to do everything in it’s power to compel the return of these stolen files via civil court---but as of today and over the last 9 months 3 of my 5 close family members have had fraud on their accounts!  The fact that so much sensitive data that is illegal for these individuals to even merely possess remains unsecured continues to be a source of stress, concern, and consternation for my family members and others who are aware this data is “out there.”

 So I’d like to discuss this with the prosecutor’s office as I am also, by copy of this email to Ms. Bowden Madden and Mr. Marcile, requesting a meeting with them as soon as practical for this purpose.

 Thank you, in advance, for your attention to this matter.

 Very Respectfully,

 Jeff Bergosh

District 1 Commissioner

Escambia Board of County Commissioners

221 Palafox Place Suite 400

Pensacola, FL 32502

850-595-4910 office

850-377-2209 Voicemail

District1@myescambia.com

www.jeffbergoshblog.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/CommissionerBergosh/

Twitter-- @jeffbergosh"

 

Election Ugliness Begins

 

People that play stupid games will win stupid prizes....

This August 20^th, the date of the Republican Primary election, will be my 7^th contested election in Escambia County for local office.

And each cycle that I have been through, the nastiness and ugliness intensifies. 

Whether in the school board races or more recently for county commission—it never ceases to amaze me the depths of cowardly depravity folks will go to in order to smear their opposition or artificially manipulate an election outcome.

It’s nasty, it is ugly, and frankly it is the reason lots of folks never run for office.

This election season is off with a bang, and the Election Ugliness has officially begun.

DYSFUNCTION JUNCTION

You know folks are desperate when they bring in surrogates to do their dirty work.

Clerk of the Court Pam Childers actively encouraged at least two existing county employees to run against me.  One has, and I am told the other is considering it. She’s mad we are suing her to compel her to do her job.  Ho hum.

Sitting commissioner Mike Kohler’s recently departed secretary, Steve Stroberger, is one of these that was encouraged to run by Childers, and he is running.  Good for him.  But is it really helpful to have a sitting commissioner get his secretary to run against another sitting commissioner on the same board?  (Check with disgraced former commissioner Doug Underhill and his former secretary Jonathan Owens on that).  Worse, this commissioner, Kohler, on a recent trip to Tallahassee pulled aside a friend of mine and started trashing and slandering me and making false statements about the contents of my stolen data files. (Oh yeah—someone stole those from the county and guess who ended up with them?  Answer, the guy I beat by 17 points in the last nasty election I was in, Jonathan Owens).    As soon as he, Kohler, was done shooting off his mouth, of course my friend called and told me everything Kohler said.  Wow, what a desperado.

Interestingly—these comments made by Kohler in Tallahassee were made before the county released the redacted version of the stolen county records.….Although the files do not contain what he lies and says they do—there are some things he mentioned that he would not have known had he not seen a copy.  So that will be looked at and questions will be asked during depositions.  This information will also be passed along to the investigators looking into the criminal conduct surrounding this theft of county files.  Did Pam Childers, who has and does possess at least one copy of my unredacted stolen data file—did she give Mike Kohler a copy?  Did she give it to the candidate she encouraged to run, Steve Stroberger?  Did Doug Underhill give it to Mike Kohler?  Too many questions.  But we will get to the bottom of it all as we commence depositions here in the next few months as the county's replevin case moves forward.  The Old Bull is walking down the hill, not running.  And all of these individuals must know by now that mere possession of these files, unredacted and without authorization, is a Felony under state law, right?  Yeah, that’s right.

Meanwhile, I have conducted polling for this race. 

And the numbers are about what I expected them to be.  This scientific polling indicates there is one heck of a battle for the bronze medal between Stroberger and Owens, and I’m comfortably ahead of both of these individuals by double digits.  But those two, each more than 20 points behind me, are within 6-8 points of each other for the Silver Medal…..

Interestingly, though, another creepy, sleazy thing happened during the time this poll was recently in the field.  Apparently, according to another friend I have that contacted me, Johathan Owens and Alex Arduini attempted to get people on the internet to “stuff the ballot box” and send bogus responses in on my poll for my opponents and against me.  My friends forwarded this to me, below.

 

How desperate do these desperados have to get?  Stealing my files, slandering me, and trying to disrupt elections communications and polling??  Sitting elected officials attempting to unseat incumbents on the boards upon which they sit?  The clerk of the court actively encouraging sitting county employees to run against us??  It’s weird, surreal, and dysfunctional.  Why can’t these folks just compete, straight up, on the issues?  Why the sleaziness and sliminess and anger and vitriol and weirdness? These guys are almost as bad as our local newspaper, the PNJ, who argue they have absolute, complete immunity to have my son’s stolen tax forms and my daughter’s stolen bank account information—even though neither of these items is a public record nor a matter of public interest and the possession of this data unauthorized is criminal under Florida Law. 

Read 817.5685

Well, the last data point I’ll share from my poll:  When respondents were asked if they believed the area’s only daily newspaper, the PNJ, was fair, balanced, and accurate---the response was 62% NO and 38% Yes among all parties and demographics.  It was worse among only Republicans.

People don’t like and don’t trust the PNJ. 

It’s not just me.

See you all on August 20^th  😊

Jonathan Owens Declines Opportunity to Speak on his Own Behalf for Legal Fees He's Requested YOU Pay

When offered the opportunity to speak on his own behalf to personally request the county cover his legal bills for his own nefarious, unlawful conduct---- before discussion on this item at a public meeting ended-----Owens sat motionless like a wax statue of a ventriloquist's doll. Why?

Jonathan Owens,  the former county employee who worked for disgraced former county commissioner Doug Underhill and who is in possession of stolen county records----- recently had the gall to formally request a taxpayer funded legal defense for his transgressions and resultant troubles stemming from his unauthorized possession of said files.  

The County Attorney's Office added this request for a taxpayer-funded (i.e. YOU) defense from former employee Owens to our agenda on Tuesday.  And Owens even showed up to the meeting, sitting in the back row of the chambers.

Nevertheless----not one commissioner on the dais Tuesday showed any inclination of even countenancing this outrageous Owens request once it was up for consideration on the agenda.  (four of us were present, D2 commissioner Mike Kohler blew off the meeting and wasn't there) 

When offered the opportunity to speak on his own behalf to personally request the county cover his legal bills before discussion on this item ended-----Owens sat motionless like a wax statue of a ventriloquist's doll.

He had the opportunity to ask, speak, lobby, and request, --and he did nothing.

The thing that is incredible to me coming off of this awkward, cringe-worthy spectacle is the rank loyalty and feilty a handful of citizens and one radio talk show host are demonstrating toward Owens in this matter.

It really is both fascinating and sad.

But facts are facts and they cannot be surpressed no matter how much Kool Aid the Underhill/Owens/Tallman fanboy club chugs.  

FOCUS ON FACTS:

1.  The records at issue were stolen from the county, and the stolen records contain personal identification information (full photos of passports, Pictures of front and back of driver's licenses, bank account numbers and pins, social security numbers, tax forms, medical records, and a host of other data on more than a dozen citizens) that would never be released under any public records request, ever.

2. Jonathan Owens admitted he has all of these records, has read them all, knew much of the information was personal/private, kept all these files upon leaving employment from the county, did not report to relevant county staff he possessed them when he worked at the county, and has subsequently dissemenated these files to others unredacted.  He admitted this all freely and openly on Tallman Mckay's Podcast (which has been scrubbed from 1620's site) as well as in the News Journal.

3. Mere possession of this personal identification information as described above, unauthorized, on this many people is a third degree felony under Florida Law.  That's why the State Attorney and appropriate law enforcement agencies were notified and a criminal investigation was requested by the county on this matter back in June.  One week later--law enforcement investigators met me in my office and were given possession of the entire file--and both the county and I, personally, signed a waiver on that date allowing investigators to freely and without providing to us any immunity or amnesty-----free reign to search all the contents of all the files in question for ANY EVIDENCE of ANY CRIME. (Somebody wake up "letter-writers"  Mike Kohler and Steve Stroberger and let them know this)

4. Jonathan Owens is specifically NOT authorized to possess this type of data, nor was he ever authorized to possess it--- and his handling and/or possession of such data--which includes photos of my family members' passport documents, Photos of my Family's driver's licenses, my social security numbers, and my childrens' social security numbers, and my sons' tax returns----was never a part of his job duties and/or a normal course of his employment in the county.  What he should have done, if his story is true and this stick drive was shoved under his office door, was immediately turn the drive over to legal.  That would have been the appropriate course of action for him to take.  But Owens didn't do that.

5.  County staff that handles public records requests for the BCC have testified, under oath, that prior to the county becoming aware of this data breach and the theft of these records coming to light----no PRR's had been made for my text messages from my personal phone.  (for the geniuses reading this--it's because those who wanted these files were already given them by Owens, unlawfully, and outside of the PRR and/or discovery process--see the relevant testimony from the county's investigation, below)

Lying liars that lie, like Underhill/Owens/Tallman/Edler will say "Bergosh and the county were withholding these texts that were public records"  but the under oath testimony in this matter obliterates their lies:  No requests were made for these files prior to our notification that said files had already been stolen and disseminated unredacted.  

6. Nothing at all related to this matter implicates the whistlebolower statutes--Federal or State--as such status would have to have been determined and agreed to by the court PRIOR to the improper, unlawful

Underhill Wins!!!!: (a Pyrrhic Victory)

"If we are victorious in one more such battle, we shall be utterly ruined" -King Pyrrhus of Epirus, 318-272 BC

A ruling in Federal Court was handed down earlier this week.  

It was a pyrrhic victory of epic proportion for disgraced former commissioner Doug Underhill in that he "Won" one aspect of a long brewing, long simmering and percolating case.  

Yes, a judge ruled for him (Underhill) in just ONE (1) aspect of this lawsuit. 

The suit was filed alleging Underhill violated the constitutional rights of constituent(s) by hiding comments and blocking comments on social media accounts he, Underhill, controlled--and the judge did side with Underhill on this.

But --even though the Judge ruled for Underhill on just this one aspect of the suit----another portion of the same ruling was simultaneously devastating to Underhill.

......Because the Judge also ruled for the plaintiff, David Bear, in the other, equally important part of the same suit-----and awarded $130, 425.50 to him (Bear) from Underhill for Underhill's failure to produce requested public records.

From the order:

"The Court previously found Bear entitled to an award of attorney’s fees against Underhill pursuant to the Florida Public Records Act, Fla. Stat. § 119.12, resulting from his failure to respond to a public records request for records within his custody.  The Court also determined that Underhill may be held personally liable for those fees as the responsible “agency,” within the meaning of the statute. ...The Clerk is directed to enter final judgment in favor of Bear and against Underhill on the Public Records Act claims of Counts I and III, including an award of attorney’s fees in the amount of $130,425.50 to Bear, and final judgment in favor of Underhill and against Bear on the First Amendment claim of Count VII, and close the file."

Read the full Ruling Here.

"If we are victorious in one more such battle, we shall be utterly ruined" -King Pyrrhus of Epirus, 318-272 BC