- April 18, 2024
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A Florida administrative law judge has recommended fining Flagler County Sheriff James L. Manfre $6,200 over two ethics violations.
The judge's order, issued Feb. 16 by Administrative Law Judge Suzanne Van Wyk, suggests a fine much less than the $19,000 recommended by the Ethics Commission advocate in a report filed Jan. 19. But it still holds Manfre responsible for two of the three charges brought against him by the Ethics Commission, all of which Manfre had sought to have dismissed.
The judge's order also recommends public censure and reprimand. The order isn't final. The Ethics Commission must still vote on whether or not to implement it.
In the Feb. 16 order, Van Wyk wrote that there is probable cause that Manfre used his agency credit card innapropriately for personal gain to pay for meals, including alcoholic beverages, for people who were not Sheriff's Office employees; and that he improperly failed to report, and then later reported inaccurately, a gift of a stay in then-undersheriff Rick Staly's cabin.
An earlier Ethics Commission decision had also found probable cause against Manfre on a third charge — that he improperly used an agency car for personal trips, including drives out-of-state — but Van Wyk found that unconvincing and didn't uphold it.
In a statement issued in response to the judge's order Feb. 16, Manfre wrote that the "ethics process has been all over the place," but that he has "no intention of appealing this decision, as it is now time to put this behind us and refocus on keeping our community safe and secure for all who live, work and vacation in Flagler County." (See Manfre's full statement below).
In the instances in which Manfre used the agency credit card for meals, Van Wyk wrote, "Respondent assumed no responsibility for, and was neither contrite nor apologetic for, his use of the agency credit card," and had instead said his then- finance director, Linda Bolante, should have told him what he owed over the per-diem rate.
Manfre had written in response to the allegation, in a statement quoted in Van Wyk's order, "I assumed and trusted that (Bolante) knew what she was doing and would come to me when the money was owed. ... It was simple addition and subtraction that all she had to do was tell me what it was. I never refused to pay back any amounts when I was asked to."
"Respondent knew that obtaining meals at a cost exceeding per diem rates was inconsistent with his public duties as Sheriff," Van Wyk wrote. "Yet, Respondent had no intent to reimburse the charged amounts exceeding the per diem rate, or the amounts paid for non-agency employees, unless and until requested by the Finance Department. Respondent’s cavalier attitude belied his alleged lack of notice." Van Wyk wrote that Manfre's use of the agency card for personal use was a "violation of misuse of office."
In the case of the visit at then-undersheriff Rick Staly's cabin in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Van Wyk was unmoved by Manfre's "newly-contrived theory," as she put it, that he did not have too report the stay as a gift because he and his wife "left one day and came back again" rather than staying on consecutive nights.
Manfre had alleged that the nights at the cabin should therefore be counted as separate gifts each worth just $44, under the mandatory reporting threshold of $100.
But the $44 per night value he'd assigned to the cabin ($132 altogether for three nights there) was contingent on it being considered a private residence. Van Wyk noted that the cabin usually rented out for $430 per night during the season in which Manfre had used it — it had been reserved for him May 3 through May 7 of 2013 — that it did not contain personal effects like family photos that would be expected in a private residence, and that all guests were required to check in at a management office.
Manfre initially didn't report the stay in the cabin as a gift at all. He'd paid just $90.20, for a cleaning fee and sales tax. But after an ethics training session, he "remarked to Undersheriff Staly, 'I think I may have a problem with your cabin,' and stated something to the effect of 'I think I was supposed to report it,'" according to the judge's order.
Staly told him it rented for $430 a night and advised him to report it, but in a later conversation, Manfre said he would report it at a value of $44 per night, the value state policy assigns to a stay at a private home, according to the order.
"Undersheriff Staly advised against that method of valuing the cabin," Van Wyk wrote in the order. "Respondent’s response was something to the effect of, 'forty-four dollars sounds better than the $430, or a $1,200 gift.'"
But in the case of the allegations that Manfre had improperly used an unmarked Sheriff's Office car on personal trips — on a personal trip to New Orleans, to the cabin in Tennessee and to Virginia to look at colleges with his son— Van Wyk wrote that although Manfre "used those resources to obtain a special benefit for himself--avoiding either the mileage and wear and tear on his personal vehicle or the expense of a rental vehicle " — there was insufficient evidence to establish that he did so with "corrupt intent," the standard necessary to find him in violation of the law.
The Sheriff's Office's policy at the time on the rise of Sheriff's Office vehicles did not clearly apply to Manfre's use of unmarked vehicles, Van Wyk wrote, and "Respondent’s interpretation of the policy as inapplicable to his position is neither unreasonable nor tortured."
Van Wyk recommended a civil penalty of $5,000 for the violation of misuse of office — the improper use of the agency credit card — along with public censure and reprimand, and a civil penalty of $1,200 for failing to disclose the stay in Staly's cabin as a reportable gift.
