Report: Putnam whistleblower paid $30K to settle gun-permits suit

TALLAHASSEE — Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam’s department paid a former employee $30,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit concerning gun permits in 2016, in which she claimed she was told she “worked for the NRA,’’ according to a Tampa Bay Times report.

Xenia Bailey, a former chief of the Bureau of License Issuance, sued the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in 2013, citing its “gross misconduct” in processing concealedweapons permits, the Times reported. Bailey also said she was instructed to meet a quota of 75 weapons-permit applications per day, and two supervisors told her “she worked for the NRA,” the National Rifle Association.

The suit was settled in 2016, with the department paying Bailey $10,000 plus $20,000 for attorney fees, but without its admission of any wrongdoing.

“The complaint alleges unsubstantiated claims made by a former employee who resigned as she was being terminated,” Putnam’s counsel, Steven Hall, said in a statement last week to the Times. “The department continues to deny any wrongdoing or unlawful acts.”

Putnam, a Republican candidate for governor who once proclaimed himself a “proud NRA sellout,” has been under fire for a 2017 inspector general report first reported last month that showed his agency did not review federal background checks for concealed-weapons permit applicants for more than a year.

Putnam has blamed the lapse on the negligence of one employee and said no one was harmed because of the 291 permits that were given in error. After the lapse was discovered, the agency revoked those permits.

That has led to vocal calls from Democrats for an independent investigation of the department because the original investigation was conducted by its own inspector general. State Sen. Linda Stewart, D-Orlando, renewed those calls Monday.