Tag: pba

Haines Brothers: Predators at Large

The Haines brothers just keep on victimizing people and very little is being done to protect the community from these guys.

Eric Haines

Chief Deputy Eric Haines had his PBA membership revoked due to his continuous malfeasance and abuse of officers’ rights. No one has ever had their membership revoked. One person was unseated from the PBA board, but he still maintained his regular membership.  This is huge. His actions are contrary to the mission statement and fundamental operations of the PBA. What does that say? This is unprecedented.

Oh and remember the “cancer sex” website he wanted to start. That nugget of info came out in Laura Montoya’s case. Common theme….sexual harassment.

 

Scott Haines

The Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office demoted Scott Haines after an IA investigation corroborated, in part, the sexual harassment of a subordinate. The finding of dildo underwear in his desk was the part being disciplined. The investigation concluded everything else is “he said” “she said”.

With his prior IA for viewing porn on his office computer as well as answering personal ads on Craigslist for hookups, there should be little doubt this guy is a sexual problem that is just amplifying due to the lack of REAL discipline. This dude is a threat to the community. Let’s not forget, he is exploiting an old lady for her money.

Why the hell are these guys allowed to oversee any staff at all? What the hell happened to these guys growing up that they have such vile proclivities to victimize people? Sexual abuse ? Possibly. All I can say for sure is these dudes should never be able to use their position, power or standing in the community to prey on said community.

Pages from IA Haines_Page_1Pages from IA Haines_Page_2Pages from IA Haines_Page_3Pages from IA Haines_Page_4Pages from IA Haines_Page_5Pages from IA Haines_Page_6Pages from IA Haines_Page_7

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

There are serious sexual issues in these two departments.  These two brothers are at the center of it all.

Lee Tyree Letter to PBA Members

The unedited letter to the PBA members from Lee Tyree.
Greetings NWFPBA family,
   As many of you have been made aware there will be a change to the way the PBA will be handling the representation of our members who are facing discipline at the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. I received notice of this change after some discussion with our General Council Stephanie Webster and our Executive Director Matt Puckett. The catalyst was the recent handing of a 112 violation for our Chapter Senior Vice President Tama Barber. This violation was a difference of legal right to communicate with council during an I.A. as it is viewed by the Sheriff’s Administration and the PBA. Both the PBA and the Sheriff’s Office have written to the Attorney General’s Office and both are awaiting a ruling.
   The initial letter from the PBA about this change was addressed directly to me from Matt Puckett. I did not release this letter to membership, the media, the public or even my board as a whole (although many of the upper board members knew what was going on). I’ve been asked why and I have told some directly when asked, I also explained the situation at the last General Membership meeting, but until now I’ve not released a statement as to why.
   There are several reasons why I didn’t put this letter out, which of course was all for not, since it eventually made its way to the public. First, I didn’t feel like a letter which was derogatory to the administration is one that I should be putting out to the public at this time and place. I’m of the opinion that this agency, just like many agencies has its share of dirty laundry, but it is the place that I have worked for the past 22 years, the same place that both my mom and dad worked and retired from and I hate seeing our department disparaged. In recent months we as an agency have had our image tarnished in the public. You only have to think of the Manning civil case which have been making the rounds on media, the case involving Zaid or the 2 cases involving former crime scene techs from our department. I didn’t want the letter to add to our ever evolving negative image.
   There is also a bit of embarrassment that came with the letter. I’ve been representing members for over 15 years and feel that the past 4 years as President, our Chapter has done a tremendous job not only in making our members better protected, but also to improving our contract and our salaries. Although Matt Puckett says in the letter that this is no reflection on the service that the Chapter Board and I provide the members, it still stings that an announcement of this type was needed at all. While I support the letter and know that it demonstrates the amount of displeasure the PBA feels over the situation involving VP Barber, I also have an opinion having worked as a rep for employees that this type of approach could create a bigger issue for some members who have discipline issues of a minor nature, where the bringing in of an attorney could make the situation more pronounced than it might need to be.
   Finally, while discipline is a big part of what I deal with as President, I also need a working relationship with the administration in order to work through all types of Union situations. I need to have an open line of communication, in order to assist our members with situations that pop up all the time. This time of the year, I get many questions about promotional exam eligibility, questions about the Chapters position on interpretation of situations that are not clear in policy and even questions about simple stuff such as detachments for training and such. For all of these reasons, I felt that the letter from Tallahassee to me would be best served as a simple notification from myself to the Administration to notify them of why all of the sudden lawyers would be showing up for all discipline matters. I let all of my reps know that lawyers would handling the discipline issues until told otherwise and to have all requests go through me so I could coordinate with Tallahassee.
   Do I agree with the PBA on their assessment of the 112 violation, yes, I have always said and will continue to say, what use is a rep or attorney in an I.A. if you cannot consult with them during the interview. My hope is that we will soon have an opinion which will put our agency I. A.’s back to normal. Should the AG’s office come back against us, then we will adjust and continue on assisting our members as best we can.
   If you have any questions please feel free to contact me and ask away!
Lee Tyree
Northwest Chapter President
Florida PBA
Can’t make this shit up! Tyree thinks he can decide what is a public record and what is appropriate to tell the members that pay dues to have men like him represent them. The letter was written to him to deliver to Haines and for him to pass the message to everyone accordingly. He was too chicken to do that.
With his intellect, he should be chief deputy in no time.
lee supergenius

Sheriff Morgan Makes False Accusations Against PBA

Sheriff Morgan,

I feel compelled to respond to your letter to Matt Puckett of the PBA. You accuse the PBA of leaking the letter sent to Lee Tyree, stripping him of his PBA obligations due to Haines’s tyrannical handling of deputies’ rights.

I know you are aware I posted that same letter on Facebook a couple of days ago and did a blog post on my blog, ConjuringJusticeBlog.com, yesterday.

Make no mistake: your administration through a NUMBER of sources leaked that document to me, not anyone in the PBA, although I called PBA first after I heard about it. However, my voicemail to Ianna Durning was not returned. Haines’s attempt to hide the letter in his own IA investigation was a terribly misguided thing to do. Everyone aware of that was appalled and reached out to sources to leak it to me.  You have more people in your administration leaking information than ever before. Why do you think that is? Don’t bother with headhunting in this case. There were so many people who contacted me, you would literally have only the handful of people who did not want this left out. I have more supporters than you do, at least in terms of people you supposedly oversee.

As for airing your ex employees’ dirty laundry, I hope Bain Custer sues you for defamation.  You used county resources to do a DNA test of fluids found in his office to prove he had sex on duty. The problem is, the male DNA found was not Bain’s. Was it another sexual deviant in your admin? That expensive test the taxpayers footed the bill for backfired on you. It only reveals the more serious problems of in your agency with you and Haines turning a blind eye to favored employees while you conduct witch hunts for those you don’t. The favored ones are a smaller group every day.

Your prevarication regarding lawsuits is being observed by many. You were not honest in asserting that all cases were dismissed or abandoned, not settled. Anita Hemphill and Jeff Van Camp settled their lawsuits with you, just to name a few. And the ongoing cases include, Laura Montoya, Philip Nix, Mindy Pare, Adam Narvaez and Tama Barber and hopefully Bain Custer soon. And this is not an all-inclusive list. I believe there are more, but you would have to ask your counsel, who is paid for by the people. They have an accurate count I’m sure.

Your rush to judgment on how the PBA letter got out is not surprising. It is much like your impulsive press conference asserting you don’t remember ever meeting Leah Manning, or your rush to think there was no Billy Boyette was in woods next to the vehicle he left abandoned, when, in fact, he was; that poor decision cost another life. All these poor decisions from the number one law enforcement officer in the county. Is there any wonder the people who call you boss, are reaching out to anyone who will listen asking for intervention?

But to be clear, this is me accepting responsibility for leaking this letter that I RECEIVED FROM YOUR OFFICE. You may want to apologize to the PBA.

Sincerely,

Jimmie Lee Staley,

aka “The Blogger who doesn’t deserve airtime”

 

Chief Deputy Haines Hiding Public Records from Deputies

On 8-13-2019, I received a notice from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office concerning a public record request made. The request was for a letter prepared by the Florida Police Benevolent Association Inc. The letter details the change in procedure for employees being investigated or disciplined by the ECSO, taking the point of contact person out of the agency and replacing them with a PBA attorney. This is a drastic move but a positive one for deputies, if they know about it. The letter calls out Eric Haines & the IA investigators for multiple complaints of “intimidation and blatant violations of LEO bill of rights”.

PBA LETTER.jpg

The letter is addressed to Lee Tyree. Tyree is the President for the local chapter of PBA. He is the only paid board member for the Northwest Florida PBA. Tyree receives a paycheck that is funded by the members of the PBA. The dues the members pay is to ensure that they are protected from improper employment practices. The members are paying to have their careers protected from corrupt leadership. They pay and trust that Lee Tyree will take the proper steps to protect them if needed. The members should be severely disappointed with what they have received from Tyree, while the PBA asserts his ineffectiveness to do his job as being in fear of retaliation, from people on the inside, the ineptness of Tyree is more about keeping favor with Haines, not avoiding retaliation, which is a different motivation altogether

After receiving this letter Tyree was instructed to hand deliver it to Haines. When Tyree provided Haines a copy of the letter, Haines, for obvious reasons, did not want the letter to be a public record. Honestly it is not a letter that belongs to Haines nor is it his call to determine what is a public record. The letter is addressed to the President of PBA, Lee Tyree. However, if Lee Tyree allows Haines to dictate his actions and tells him it is now part of an ongoing Internal Affairs investigation into Haines. Yes, Haines is overseeing his own IA investigation.  But without any balking, Tyree accepts this direction and without hesitation allows Haines to hide the letter from the PBA membership and public.

Every member of this chapter of the PBA should file a complaint against Tyree with the sender of this letter. Tyree has allowed countless employees to be mistreated and disciplined by Haines, knowing violations of employee rights were occurring.  Tyree even helped assist Haines by talking employees into resigning convincing them there is no other options. Tyree was seldom concerned enough to put up a strong defense for employees being harmed by Haines.

Now that we have seen the letter, we know it doesn’t relate to any investigation. There is not a true reason to refuse a public record request because of confidential status. In fact, it is an informative document advising the President of  this chapter of the PBA that a process that has been in place for over 25 years will change. A process for handling investigations and discipline will change because of improper conduct of “upper management” specifically Eric Haines and Internal Affairs investigators. This was a letter written to Tyree so he could inform the membership that PBA was taking action to protect them.

Unfortunately, but predictably, Tyree went the course of conspiring to hide the letter in a bogus Internal Investigation. Tyree is most concerned with being promoted apparently. He jumped at the chance to please Haines even though he was derelict in the performance of the duties he has been paid to perform as PBA President. He did nothing to inform the membership or post the letter for consumption by the membership. Tyree is the person responsible for protecting employees but instead assisted with committing law violations by concealing a public record. Why?

All PBA members should demand an explanation from Tyree and try to determine exactly how much he has kept hidden from the membership. A review of his conduct should be completed to determine if he should return funds received because of  shirking his required duties. In fact, it appears Tyree was more concerned with personal gain and has provided little service to members of the union. His recent contract negotiation left PBA with a shell of a contract and even less job protection. Seems more appropriate for Haines to be paying Tyree and not the membership of PBA for this service of undercutting deputies’ rights.

As far as Public Record request are concerned this is an old issue with Haines. He routinely makes attempts to delay or avoid Public Records requests. Haines should be held accountable for his conduct with this issue as well as the issues brought up by PBA. The fact that the ECSO would consider avoiding public record laws is a major concern. Why is that? What could they be hiding?
68751610_2972267126124045_390176119321526272_o

Here are a couple of public records requests that have been difficult to obtain. Maybe some of the readers could attempt to obtain some records. If anyone is willing, go to this link  & please find out for yourselves how certain subjects really upset the ECSO leadership. You probably will not be successful, but you will get a first-person view of corruption at work. Here is the standard template. Copy and paste any all of the requests.

 

In Accordance with FSS Ch 119 I request the following record:

  1. Monthly total of off duty fee collected from extra duty employment
  2. Any document indicating deposit, expenditure, or disbursement of funds collected from off duty

 

 

In Accordance with FSS Ch 119 I request the following record:

  1. Any investigation relating to any employee investigated for improper use of SSN
  2. Any employee investigated for committing fraud by stealing identity of a deceased person
  3. Investigation completed by Capt. Ray Briggs on the listed issues.
  4. Any recorded interviews of the subject of the investigation
  5. Crime stoppers tip that notified the ECSO of employee not being a legal citizen

 

In Accordance with FSS Ch 119 I request the following record:

  1. All training records documenting the training Steve Cappas has received concerning evidence handling.
  2. All training Steve Cappas has received making him qualified to examine electronic evidence

In Accordance with FSS Ch 119 I request the following record:

  1. Any internal communications, emails relating to & from David Morgan or any public information officers from 7/9/2009-7/15/2009 (Billings case)
  2. Any internal communication relating to server failure for the above time frame

In Accordance with FSS Ch 119 I request the following record:

  1. All Gulf Coast Crimestoppers payouts for any given year.

In Accordance with FSS Ch 119 I request the following record:

  1. Evidence logs showing chain of custody of all evidence in reference to the Manning case.
  2. All internal correspondence that mentions the name “Jimmie Staley” or “Conjuring Justice”

If anyone gets this information, please share. You will likely be told that the record doesn’t exist or there was never an investigation. Just because they say it doesn’t mean that it is true. A good rule to follow is to verify that the record exists from someone inside the agency. This is my rule of thumb but the powers that be inside the agency haven’t  seemed to figure this out yet.

Deputy Response to Haines Email

The prediction made concerning the bully behavior and tactics by Haines has now been confirmed. Many of you read the post a couple of days ago about this issue. The path that Haines would follow was clearly explained. He exploited the weak leadership of PBA. He didn’t accomplish what he wanted so in the typical Haines/Morgan fashion throws a baby fit and takes his ball and goes home. This is not the behavior of professionals nor is this behavior what the ECSO employees deserve from the leaders of the agency.

Appearance:

On its face, as Haines’s email is written, it appears that he is attempting to be completely transparent and attempting to keep the employees informed. His email creates the illusion that he has been open and honest with the entire process. In fact, he even feigns some sort of personal hurt by not being able to facilitate a solution to this terrible problem that has harmed the beloved employees of the ECSO. By God, he is still dedicated enough to his mission that he has extended another opportunity for PBA to do the right thing. He even puts a deadline that would cause happiness for his troubled heart to achieve a solution to this issue adversely impacting the employees he serves.

True Meaning:

For those of us who can decipher BS, I would like to translate what his email actually says. Working for this man for the number of years that I have and knowing him personally, I am in the position to expose his maniacal intentions with this email. As to the $2200 raise to all deputies including trainees, this is laughable. Haines has argued in the past that veteran deputies are not entitled to raises during a probationary period after a promotion. Now he believes $2200 across the board is the best plan for even those not even trained to be deputies. This statement just divided any officer under the rank of sergeant from those who are aware of the importance to standing strong for a contract providing job security. Haines has separated those that will get a raise and fight for his cause and those that know what Haines is capable of as it relates to job security. The ones slated for a raise will argue that the contract should be agreed on immediately. This is playing both groups of deputies, veterans and new recruits/trainees against each other. As it stands, it would be more beneficial financially for the veteran deputy to quit and reapply, giving up his seniority for the all mighty dollar. The veteran deputies just became more compressed, and that was what Haines argued so vehemently against to the BOCC.

Also, he just gave himself $2200 to spend at his discretion in lapse salaries. There are hundreds of thousands of salary dollars that have been wasted because of vacant positions. Every vacant position just gave an irresponsible administration another $2200 to waste at their discretion. When it is explained, it is clear Haines actually gave himself free money to use at his discretion and didn’t have the deputies best interest in mind. He increased the amount of money that is available for useless spending which they have proven is so dear to their hearts. He made himself the “good guy” with the sub-set of deputies, created by his rhetoric, he says will get them a raise no matter what! However, he is the one obstacle in veteran deputies getting raises.

As the email continues, Haines specifically explains all his issues with the contract. One of the changes he wants is with the discipline matrix. He tries to convince the deputies that he wants the change made so that certain violations that are level E could be reduced as to not be automatic termination. Then Haines continues that there were others either up or down. That statement sounds relatively benign and any reasonable person would think it is harmless. However, this is another example of where Haines spins the subject to brush over the issues creating the problem. Why didn’t he specifically discuss “several other violations that we also requested for the range to go up or down”? The answer is because in that brief seemingly innocent statement were issues that weaken the contract and strip employees of security in the job. He took the time to mention the one benefit to Morgan but not the one that causes the real problem. It is worth noting that Morgan (Haines) often ignore the discipline matrix if the employee has been determined unworthy of being treated in a manner that is fair. Employees have been terminated when the matrix and the DRB (Disciplinary Review Board) suggested termination was not appropriate. Again, Haines appears the “good guy” and others are interfering with his distribution of unicorns and rainbows.

Continuing through the lies in this email, a scenario of patience and understanding is described. Time and again, Haines worked through with PBA causing delays such as illness and other reasons that were understood by Haines. His fluttering angel wings and shiny halo in place, Haines is always at the ready to discuss issues that have been known for years and needed to be finalized. The troublesome “loopholes”, that were being exploited by those cast off for failure to honor the privilege of a law enforcement career under the Honorable Thelbert Morgan, had to be closed. The “loopholes” he speaks of are rights protected by state and federal law.  A contract, even one negotiated by Haines, can’t deny an employee the rights provided by law. I will admit there are many issues that would benefit Haines/Morgan when the torturous acts they embrace of preparing employees for termination begins. The problem is the PBA contract can’t give them permission to violate law. Maybe Haines should put in a bid for a lawmaker’s seat. He is trying to trick deputies into signing a contract that makes the likelihood of being fired for arbitrary violations of loyalty more likely and making job security non-existent, all for a raise.  A better idea would be to avoid the innate desire to harm good people because of his demented philosophy of how to be an effective leader. Machiavellian is the only word to describe this attempt to roll a raise into a contract that negates job security. He fails to realize that the contract exists to protect employees from people like him. Haines maliciously is trying to buy deputies’ right to work with the $9 million dollars given to the ECSO for deputies.

To the leadership of the PBA:  it is time to step up and do the right thing. This position isn’t easy and it is not for the weak. If you are scared right now and wishing you were not a leader in PBA, it is not likely you are the man for the job. There is no shame in honesty. Step down and walk away. Allow a true leader to move into your spot and save the rights you have left. It isn’t about you and has everything to do with the future of so many honorable people.  You are dealing with peoples’ lives and more importantly the ripple effect of causing deputies to flee the drama and trauma of this administration. Less deputies perpetuates crime but I guess that is the goal of the criminals running the show.