South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Broward Sheriff ’s Office spent $2.6 million housing, supervising gunman
Authorities suing to recover funds up to state limit of $250,000
The gunman who murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, has been behind bars for over 1,700 days.
Since the day of his arrest, confessed killer Nikolas Cruz has been housed inside the Broward Main Jail, and that has cost the Broward Sheriff ’s Office nearly $2.6 million, according to a court motion filed Friday. The motion says the Sheriff ’s Office is seeking to recover the maximum amount they’re entitled to under Florida law: $250,000.
The cost of housing Cruz in the jail between Feb. 14, 2018, and Wednesday, when the motion was written, totaled $321,659.34. The vast majority of expenses incurred by the Sheriff’s Office came from paying overtime to the deputies who watched him in his cell, the motion says.
In the last fiscal year alone, the Sheriff ’s Office paid $704,485.19 to the deputies assigned to supervise Cruz in “one-on-one” single-housing supervision, the motion says. In total, Cruz’s incarceration has cost the Sheriff’s Office $2.27 million in overtime personnel, with the majority of the cost stemming from two deputies who watch Cruz in his unit 24 hours a day.
The housing and supervising costs together bring the grand total to $2,595,641.82 million, the motion says, though “the actual costs incurred by BSO for housing Nikolas Cruz far exceed this amount quoted above.”
The state of Florida spent over $2 million prosecuting and trying the gunman. The Broward Public Defender’s Office has not released its costs.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally sentence Cruz next week to life in prison. He confessed to the murders in October 2021, and after a sentencing trial that lasted months, a jury rejected the death penalty on Oct. 13.