Florida PRR 2006-641

I received the FDLE Office of General Counsel's response to my Public Records Request for Case #2006-CC-011 in yesterday's mail. In his cover letter, dated August 16, 2006, Assistant General Counsel, James D. Martin, advised me that he had provided a copy of Case #2006-CC-011 documents and waived the copying costs as de minimus.

The "case file" contained a MEMORANDUM, dated July 24, 2006, and initialed by Inspector Wilmer regarding: "Email complaint by Joe Keegan." In it he wrote that he was assigned a complaint forwarded by the FDLE OIG. Wilmer also wrote the he reviewed eight AIMS Investigative Reports concerning similar complaints. Wilmer briefly recapped our July 3, 2006 afternoon phone conversation (Dawn Case, Director of Investigations, Office of the Chief Inspector General, notified me earlier that morning that she was forwarding my letter to the Governor to FDLE IG Dennis). The only errors that I noted in the little that he did write was that I said that the FDLE threatened only one TSCM expert with the loss of his Florida PI license and not all three as Wilmer wrote, and that he referred to my inquiry as a "complaint" regarding only an illegal tracking device. Wilmer also wrote that he inspected my July 4, 2006 email which recapped our July 3, 2006 conversation. Wilmer wrote that the recap was from "Mr. Keegan's perspective" and placed in the record. He concluded that "...Mr. Keegan's allegations are without basis in fact." During our July 3 phone conversation, Inspector Wilmer said that he did not know anything about this case other than what was contained in the email that the OIG forwarded, didn't know anything about my recent letter to Governor Bush (which not too surprisingly was missing from this case file), and didn't have any prior knowledge. Wilmer then went on to quote me verbatim from my earlier correspondence when he advised me what to do.

Neither Inspector Wilmer nor Chief Inspector Lober have replied to the following direct questions contained in my July 4, 2006 email: "Finally, if I did supply you with direct evidence of illegal electronic surveillance by FL law enforcement, what action could you take as an FDLE Criminal Investigator (Inspector)? And, what action would you take as an FDLE Criminal Investigator regarding illegal electronic surveillance and official misconduct by certified Florida law enforcement officers?"

The case file also contained Chief Inspector Lober's letter, dated July 24, 2006. I posted the text from his letter previously. The file also contained some internal data printouts, including references to prior complaints with brief histories. Basically, they used former FDLE Executive Director Jamie McLaughlin's initial refusal to investigate my detailed charges by claiming that there "didn't appear to be any criminal predicate," and morphed it to "lacks substance" and "no basis in fact" so as not to investigate my subsequent well documented and detailed complaints and charges.

I suspect that Wilmer's and Lober's July 24, 2006 respective MEMORANDUM and letter were written and backdated following my inquiries regarding the status of the interim FDLE Director. My letter to the Governor, which Director of Investigations Case forwarded to FDLE IG Dennis, did prompt Wilmer's July 3, 2006 afternoon phone call.