State investigator quits amid conflict of interest probe

TALLAHASSEE — A secret meeting in the parking lot of a luxury hotel south of Orlando. Confidential information about a criminal investigation is shared. Allegations of insurance fraud and illegally shooting a bear. Personal use of a state vehicle.

All were part of an investigation of an allegedly inappropriate relationship between the wife of a law enforcement officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the agency’s longtime Inspector General Michael Troelstrup, who resigned before the probe was completed.

The probe found enough evidence to support the allegation that Troelstrup had an improper relationship with FWC officer Nathaniel Douglas’ wife, Grace, as Troelstrup’s staff looked into several complaints that she had made against her husband while they were separated.

Investigators also found that Troelstrup had violated the agency’s confidentiality policy.

In addition, the report found that Troelstrup, who supervised the agents looking into actions by Nathaniel Douglas and signed their reports, didn’t disclose that a conflict of interest existed nor did he recuse himself from the case.

“The appearance was not good, and I would never intentionally violate the law,” Troelstrup said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel. “So no, I would not do that again.”

Details of the investigation by the Office of the Chief Inspector General in the governor’s office are laid out in a 117-page report dated Dec. 28 and released last week after people involved asked for copies.

The report shows hundreds of text messages and phone calls on state-issued phones and on prepaid cell phones between Troelstrup and Grace Douglas, who has since reconciled with her spouse.

“I feel bad for everybody and want to move on,” Grace Douglas said, glad that the long ordeal is finally over. Her husband won’t comment.

Between March 21 through July 14, investigators found 124 calls between Troelstrup and Grace Douglas adding up to 73 hours of talk time. Of these total calls, 59% were potentially during work time.

Phone records for that period show 3,570 texts between the two, 64% of which were potentially during working hours.

The report also contains records showing the two met secretly at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate hotel in mid-June, shortly before the relationship ended.

Troelstrup submitted his resignation in November, effective Dec. 27, while the investigation was still being conducted.

A spokesperson for the FWC said it will not be taking any action against Troelstrup, whose salary at the time he resigned was $107,456.18 annually.

“As far as my resignation, this was something I had been considering for the last few years,” Troelstrup said in his email to the Sentinel. “Instead of fighting this and dragging people through it, I decided the time was right.”

No disciplinary action was recommended by the Office of the Chief Inspector General, which referred any questions to the FWC. The report did call for more training of FWC employees about conflicts of interest during internal investigations.

Douglas, a law enforcement officer with the FWC since 2010, was placed on administrative leave in April following an on-duty traffic accident.

Douglas is assigned to the Northeast division, which covers Orange and Seminole counties, and primarily investigates boat crashes and hunting accidents that involve serious injury or death.

According to testimony from Troelstrup and the Douglases, the relationship began when Grace Douglas called the FWC’s anonymous hotline in March to make a complaint about another officer. An aide in Troelstrup’s office saw the name on the caller ID and notified her boss about it.

Troelstrup testified he remembered there had been a domestic violence complaint a few years ago, which the Lake County Sheriff ’s Office eventually dropped, so he called her to find out “what was going on.”

She said her husband had moved in with a female colleague from work, Troelstrup told investigators. He said he felt bad for her and called her several times in the following weeks.

“Something was happening down there... it was nothing but trying to help, “Troelstrup said.

Early on in their relationship, she said, he offered to buy her insurance and asked her to move to Tallahassee so he could watch over her.

He took note of complaints from Grace Douglas about her husband, including a bear shooting from 2016, insurance fraud, a domestic violence complaint from 2018, driving his state-issued vehicle for personal use, and alcohol bottles in that vehicle.

Douglas admitted to shooting the bear and was exonerated after an investigation found no legal grounds for disciplinary action. Likewise, no evidence was found to support the insurance fraud allegation.

Nothing came of the other complaints, either.

Grace Douglas told investigators she made the complaints so she could have leverage over her husband when it seemed like they were heading for a divorce and child custody battle.

Troelstrup said he wasn’t involved in the investigations, but kept calling her in hopes she would feed him more information, the report said. He also shared confidential information with her that a warrant would be issued against her husband and he could face criminal charges on the bear shooting and insurance fraud allegations.

Inspector generals are supposed to safeguard such information, the investigative report said. Sharing it during an active investigation is a violation of both policy and state law, the report said.

Troelstrup and Grace Douglas both said their relationship grew to something more intimate, which she described as sexual without being physical. They exchanged flirtatious text messages and sexy photos, she said.

When they met at the Omni ChampionsGate near Orlando in June, where he was attending a conference for inspector generals, she said she was too nervous to go upstairs so they stayed in his truck, made out and drank hard cider until she eventually left.

“She [Ms. Douglas] never went inside, she didn’t come... go into my room, we hung out in the parking lot, we talked, we laughed, and she went her way and I went my way,” Troelstrup says in the report.

She said they broke up several times because he wanted to take things further, but she didn’t. Their last communication with each other was in July.

She told her husband about the meetup at the Omni when they decided to get back together and fix their marriage.

After his wife told Douglas about the relationship, he filed a complaint with the Office of the Chief Inspector General in August to report his wife and Troelstrup. Douglas said the relationship with his wife was “inappropriate” because she was a witness in the investigations into his conduct.

In the report, Troelstrup confirmed he and Grace Douglas exchanged flirtatious texts but denied that the relationship was sexual or that it stopped because she wouldn’t take it further physically.

He argued that a sexual relationship would be one where most or all of the texts and calls were of a sexual nature.

“That was not the case here ... just a few flirtatious exchanges,” Troelstrup said. “I feel like they are twisting the narrative.”