Sheriff ordered to give judge records
A Broward judge on Monday said that she wants to see what Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony’s lawyers want to keep private.
Clarifying an order she issued last week, Broward Circuit Judge Michele Towbin Singer said the sheriff must identify any felony cases in which he was charged or sentenced as an adult during his past in Philadelphia, where he grew up and where he was once charged with killing a man in an apparent case of self-defense.
And if Tony wants a record kept from opposing lawyers, he’s going to have to turn it over to the judge first. Towbin Singer said she would make the final determination of whether the records should be released or concealed.
Tony is being sued by three former high-ranking deputies who left the agency before he was appointed. As part of that lawsuit, attorneys are allowed to delve into Tony’s past because a jury is entitled to consider that information when deciding whether his testimony can be trusted.
But Tony’s past has never been a simple matter: Last year, after the Florida Bulldog, a nonprofit news organization, uncovered it, Tony disclosed that he was tried as a juvenile for killing a man in Philadelphia. According to Tony, he was acquitted because the judge determined he acted in self-defense, though official records of that resolution have not been released.
Records show that Tony was on adult probation on a Philadelphia case. His lawyers have insisted
that it was a traffic case, not a criminal felony, and an official search conducted by Pennsylvania’s First Judicial District found no evidence of a pending case or prior criminal conviction naming Tony was a defendant.
Tony’s lawyers wanted to keep the other side’s lawyers from seeing any case that started as a juvenile case or was transferred to or from juvenile courts. Plaintiff ’s attorney Tonja Haddad Coleman agreed that juvenile records are off limits, but insisted that cases transferred to adult court should be disclosed.
In a separate lawsuit, Tony is being sued by former political opponents H. Wayne Clark and Scott Israel, who accuse the sheriff of being ineligible to serve because of Philadelphia convictions whose existence, so far, no one has been able to prove.
Tony was appointed sheriff in January 2019 and won election to a full term last November. His elected term began earlier this month.