Investigation: No Wrongdoing In Courthouse Hidden Cameras

The investigation by the Highlands County Sheriff's Office into hidden cameras in offices of the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court here concludes that there was no wrongdoing on the part of court officials, said Detective Sgt. Darin Hood.

Assistant State Attorney Steve Houchin reached the same conclusion. In a written statement, Houchin said:

"After reviewing the information gathered by the sheriff's office concerning the placement of cameras in the Electronic Court Reporter's office by a supervisor and the alleged alternation of the invoice for the purchase of the cameras, it is the opinion of the State Attorney's Office that no criminal violation has occurred."

However, Preston Colby, who has made public records requests for the video recorded and the authorization to place the cameras, claims his requests have not fully been complied with.

"I am in the process of filing a criminal felony complaint against the records custodians of these video tapes," he said.

Also, while Colby said he has information that there were five hidden cameras, Hood, in charge of the sheriff's investigation, said there were four cameras, one of which was in plain view and not hidden.

Colby said Tuesday he is taking his concerns about the way the investigation was handled to the governor's office.

"I have contacted the governor's office and I'm putting in a request for a special prosecutor, summarizing the facts as I know them, at the suggestion of the people in the governor's office in the open government office," he said.

Hood said his investigation found three hidden cameras: two in an air vent in Room 309, the electronic court reporting office; and one hidden in a Teddy bear on a desk in that room. He also said there was a fourth camera, in the data center, which houses the computer servers for audio recording of court proceedings, but it was "in plain sight."

Colby, in a public records request to Nick Sudzina, court administrator, said there were five cameras, the four noted above by Hood, and a fifth camera in the office of Brian Franza, a court information technology employee. He referred to all five of the cameras as being "hidden."

The court turned over compact discs of recordings from the cameras to the sheriff's office and to Colby, per his public records request.

Colby claims that about seven hours of recording from the two cameras hidden in the air vent were not turned over to him or the sheriff's office. Court logs show that the cameras were running until about 5:30 p.m. each day, he said.

But, Colby said, compact discs turned over to him from the two cameras in the air vent contained recordings up until shortly after 2 p.m. on Jan. 29, leading him to conclude that three and a half hours of recording on each camera were not turned over.

Hood said he reviewed Colby's complaint about the "missing" hours on the video tapes and found that they were "inadvertently" not copied. But, he said, recordings for those hours now have been copied and turned over to the sheriff's office.

Colby should also be receiving a copy of those recordings due to his public records request, Hood said.

"When the data was copied to compact disc from the (computer) server, it is apparent the data was inadvertently not copied to the compact disc," Hood said about the recordings after 2 p.m. on Jan. 29. "Since then, that has been provided to me and for the public records release as well ... there was no resistance to providing the data."

Colby called Hood's explanation "not credible."

"It doesn't make sense," Colby said. "That would mean that they had to repeat the same mistake four times. They had to not copy it from camera one and not copy it from camera two, once for me and once for the sheriff's department. Give me a break."

Sudzina said he authorized the cameras and is not sure if there was a camera in Franza's office. Whether there was or not, he said, "is immaterial."

"We may put cameras in if we think there may be a security breach," Sudzina said. "We've done that in Highlands County, we've done that in Polk County, and if we need to we'll do that in Hardee County.

"I don't know why that is an issue," he added. "We put cameras in where we think security may be being breached."