The State’s Attorney’s Office received a written complaint from a retired law enforcement officer, Paul Henry, on March 2, 2017 alleging Gillum committed grand theft and official misconduct when he used public funds to purchase NGP Van software and when Gillum then used that software for emails pertaining to his gubernatorial campaign.

This matter was investigated by Leon County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tyler Epstein, who turned over his findings to State Attorney Jack Campbell on July 19.

According to Epstein’s findings Gillum did not personally utilize the NGP Van software to send the questionable emails.

The grand jury report said communications were delegated to staff, with Chief of Staff Dustin Daniels possessing the only password to the software.

According to the grand jury report, city employees Jamie Van Pelt, Community Relations Coordinator, and Daniels are the “only persons who ever created or directed the NGP Van software to send any communications using City of Tallahassee funds. “

“No evidence was found to suggest the Gillum directed, or was personally involved, in the decision to send the four political emails or any other communications using the NGP Van system,” the report said.

The grand jury report said it did not find these staffers to be guilty of misappropriation, because there was no evidence they had criminal intent to steal when they used the software to send the emails. They also determined the staff’s use of public property for personal or political reasons and fundraising to be “incidental and insufficient to support criminal prosecution.”

The grand jury did find it “disturbing” that presented evidence suggested that expenditures by the City of Tallahassee’s elected officials are not checked by internal audit or regulation. The grand jury recommended the City of Tallahassee empower “somebody” to oversee and report the spending of elected official’s personal staffs.

More specifically, the Grand Jury investigated whether, when this incident occurred, TPD officers were outside their jurisdiction in violation of the Mutual Aid Agreement between TPD and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO).

The incident occurred on the night of January 12, 2013 and involved the investigation of a burglary that resulted in 25 shots being fired, with 12 hitting a TPD officer’s car. The investigation and shooting took place outside of the city limits.

The report stated that the “TPD was negligent in their failure to comply with the Mutual Aid Agreement. And the result is that a police officer was almost killed and a community was unnecessarily put in danger. TPD should have requested mutual aid before they set foot outside their jurisdiction.”

In addition, the Grand Jury was less than impressed with TPD’s internal response when notified it would take over 45 days to render any findings. “It is astonishing we (Grand Jury) could conduct an investigation and render this Presentment after less than twelve hours work, yet an agency that specializes in investigations cannot get the job done in four months. It appears…that the union contract between TPD and the Police Benevolent Association is at least partly to blame for this delay.” The Grand Jury goes on to describe TPD’s review of this matter as “careless, uncaring, cavalier, and incompetent.”

The report made several recommendations that would make the Mutual Aid Agreement more workable. However, their final recommendation, “the consolidation of TPD and LCSO into one agency led by the Leon County Sheriff” reflects the Grand Jury’s final finding: “we have little confidence that the issues articulated in this report will be properly addressed by TPD.”

View Report: GJ Presentment 2013