Rebekah Jones, state’s former COVID-19 data manager, to turn self in after arrest warrant issued

Rebekah Jones, the fired COVID-19 data manager for the state of Florida whose home was raided by police in December, said she will turn herself in to authorities on Sunday after the state issued a warrant for her arrest.

In a since-deleted post on Twitter on Saturday, she said: “To protect my family from continued police violence, and to show that I’m ready to fight whatever they throw at me, I’m turning myself into police in Florida Sunday night. The Governor will not win his war on science and free speech. He will not silence those who speak out.”

It’s not clear what charges she faces.

Jones was the principal force behind the state’s coronavirus dashboard in the early days of the pandemic. In May, she was fired from her post at the Florida Department of Health, where she was manager of Geographic Information Systems.

She said she was fired because she refused to fudge figures about the virus.

The state says she was fired for insubordination. Jones has a pending whistleblower lawsuit against the state over her firing.

After leaving the Florida Department of Health,

Jones set up her own coronavirus dashboard to present the state’s data to the public.

She sued the Florida Department of Law Enforcement over the police raid on her house.

Officers served the warrant on her house after they said they traced an unauthorized entry into a Florida Department of Emergency Management text message service back to an IP address registered to Jones.

Jones denied accessing the messaging service and sending a message to Florida Department of Health employees that read, in part:

“It’s time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong.”

Jones’s lawsuit alleges that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement violated her constitutional rights, as well as state law, when officers served a warrant on her home during the early hours of Dec. 7.

Legal experts say she could face up to five years in prison if prosecutors charge her with accessing the messaging service without permission.

Jones said she was feeling emotional on Saturday as she gathered her things to head to the police.

“Saying goodbye to my family just now is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said on Twitter.

Jones