If elected, Crist, Fried say they’d suspend Broward Sheriff Tony
Both candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor, Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried, would suspend Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony if he’s still in office and one of them becomes governor.
The candidates received the same question about Tony’s well-documented, repeated lies on his law enforcement applications about his killing someone while he was a teenager: “If he is still the sheriff when you take office, would you suspend him?”
“Yeah,” Crist said in an interview Thursday with the editorial boards and news reporters from the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel. Asked a second time, he repeated, “Yeah.”
Fried gave a longer answer in a Wednesday interview with the newspapers.
“I need to look into it because if that is accurate and that is true that this is exactly what happened — and I have not been following [it as closely as] … the people in Broward. But if it is in fact true that he has lied on these forms and that could be shown, I will have no choice but to suspend him,” Fried said.
Tony, in a written statement Friday, dismissed what Crist and Fried said.
“I was duly elected by the voters of Broward County and also won the Democratic primary. However nevertheless, these two candidates are still running against the person [Gov. Ron DeSantis] who appointed me, so of course, they are going to say political things like that. It speaks to their gross disconnect and desperate effort to win an irrelevant newspaper endorsement. Apparently, they don’t care about the due process of law, justice, and more importantly, the will of our voters — the great people in Broward County. Nevertheless, best of luck to both of them,” Tony said.
Three days after DeSantis took office in 2019, he suspended then-Sheriff Scott Israel and appointed Tony as his replacement.
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was among the 17 people killed in the Stoneman Douglas massacre and was a prominent DeSantis supporter during the 2018 gubernatorial campaign, has said Tony’s was among the names he asked the governor to consider as sheriff. The vetting in the new administration was done quickly, and Tony’s background wasn’t uncovered at the time.
Florida governors have the authority to suspend local elected officials for malfeasance or other infractions. DeSantis said Israel demonstrated incompetence and neglect of duty in connection with the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in 2017.
In May 2020, the Florida Bulldog investigative news website first reported that Tony had killed someone when he was 14.
In August 2020, Tony won the Democratic nomination for sheriff after a highly contentious primary, receiving 37.4% of the vote to 35.1% for his predecessor, Israel. Four other Democrats split the remaining 27.5%.
Tony won a full, four-year term as sheriff in November 2020, with 63.3% of the vote.
Scrutiny of the sheriff, particularly over his background, continued after the election.
In a Jan. 31, 2022, report, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Tony repeatedly lied about the shooting, which took place in Philadelphia in 1993, on job applications.
Tony answered “no” when asked if he had ever been arrested for a felony when he successfully applied to the police academy in 2004 and again when he was hired in 2005 by Coral Springs Police. He also said “no” on a Coral Springs background questionnaire when asked, “Have you ever injured or caused the death of another person?” and “Were you ever in a fight involving a weapon?”
As a 14-year-old, Tony shot and killed an 18-year-old from his neighborhood, was arrested on a murder charge, and stood trial for the shooting. He argued it was self defense, and was found not guilty, according to newspaper clippings from the time.
He kept it a secret. On forms for law enforcement jobs, he repeatedly lied about his past, answering “no” to questions such as “have you ever been detained by any law enforcement officer for investigative purposes.” Even his entry into law enforcement — attendance of the basic recruit academy — rested on an application with untrue answers about his past.
FDLE found that in 1993, then14-year-old “Tony was arrested and charged with murder, possessing instruments of crime, possession of an unlicensed firearm, and carrying firearms on public streets or public property in Philadelphia.”
State investigators couldn’t find records detailing Tony’s case, or the trial, or explaining whether the records were expunged — largely because so much time has passed.
At a Feb. 1 news conference, DeSantis said, “We are going to review everything, take a look. We saw the initial report. It will be something we will be reviewing in the coming days.”
DeSantis’ press secretary and communications director didn’t immediately respond to an email Thursday about the status of the review.
FDLE also found that in 2003, Tony answered truthfully that he once used LSD as a teenager when he applied for a job with the Tallahassee Police Department, his first law enforcement application. After that admission caused his rejection, investigators found that on subsequent police applications Tony answered “no” when asked if he had ever used hallucinogenic drugs.
Investigators say Tony also repeatedly lied on police and Florida driver’s license applications by answering “no” when asked if his license was ever suspended. Pennsylvania had suspended his license in 1996 for failing to pay traffic tickets. That last happened in 2019 when he applied for a new license shortly after he became sheriff. This article includes information from Sun Sentinel archives and Associated Press. Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics