- April 24, 2024
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Former Flagler County elections supervisor Kimberle Weeks not only recorded people's conversations without their consent, but did so in order to "have leverage" over them and released one of those recordings "to embarrass" two local officials, according to the State Attorney's Office.
Weeks is charged with 12 felony counts over surreptitiously recording people's conversations and distributing the recordings. The prosecution in the case filed a Feb. 10 document (see it HERE) with the Clerk of Courts office stating that Weeks' recording of various people, including local and state officials, follows a pattern of behavior with that common intent, and that the case against her should therefore not be split into several separate trials, as requested by Weeks' legal team.
"The State intends to prove at trial that the defendant taped and recorded different people in order to have 'leverage' on them to accomplish her goals," the document states.
Recording a person without their consent — and disseminating that recording — is generally a third-degree felony in the state of Florida, but the recording or dissemination must be intentional, not accidental.
Weeks' pattern of behavior shows that her recordings were made intentionally, and the prosecution plans to use evidence from the various instances "to prove intent, motive, lack of mistake or accident, knowledge, and/or modus operandi," according to the document. "Florida Courts have long held this type of evidence admissible so long as it is relevant in proving a material issue in the case," according to the document.
Weeks' attorney, Joerg Jaeger, had filed two "motions to sever," stating in a Jan. 8 pretrial hearing that he hoped to separate the cases in which Weeks is charged with recording people while acting in her official capacity from those in which she's charged with recording private conversations with her acquaintances, and also from those in which she's charged with recording city of Palm Coast officials. (See the motions to sever HERE and HERE.)
The 12 counts against Weeks consist of 10 charges that she recorded state and county officials and others without their consent, and two that she disseminated two of those recordings: a tape of a conversation between County Commissioners Charlie Ericksen and County Attorney Al Hadeed, and a recording of a conversation between Weeks, Secretary of State Ken Detzner and other officials.
Weeks had disputes with both the County Commission and Hadeed, and "The release of Mr. Hadeed's and Commissioner Ericksen's illegally recorded statements was intended to embarrass them and give the defendant an upper hand in the disagreement," according to the document.
Weeks sent that recording to the press and to County Commission candidate Dennis McDonald, and in an April 4 recording, made "statements that allude to the fact that she is communicating with Dennis McDonald about how things will change for the Supervisor of Elections Office should McDonald be elected to the County Commission over another sitting Commissioner," according to the document.
Weeks behaved similarly by recording Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner after she'd pressed his office to intervene in a dispute with the city of Palm Coast over polling locations, according to the document.
"Weeks was upset about what was occurring in Palm Coast and she called the Secretary of State and asked for advice and demanded that he intervene to correct the perceived inequities of the defendant," according to the document. "It is the State's position that the Defendant recorded the conversation with the hope that she would gain some incriminating information that would benefit her goals."
The document cites other instances, including Weeks' recording of a conversation with Palm Coast City Clerk Virginia Smith, who Weeks recorded "in hopes of obtaining incriminating information that could be utilized by the defendant for the furtherance of her goals" in the polling location dispute with Palm Coast; and Weeks' recording of a police officer who was heading an investigation of Weeks' son, and who she recorded "in the hopes she would gain some leverage in order to help her son out in his case," according to the document.
A hearing on the motions to sever filed by Weeks' legal team is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. March 24 at the Kim C. Hammond Justice Center in Bunnell.
