A deputy shot Adams after a struggle outside the family business in Loxahatchee Groves in 2012. Dougan started patrolling Belle Glade in 2008 after four years on easier turf. Last year, Bradshaw announced that he was ending the seldom-used work-release program for all inmates. During our interview, he seemed more concerned about the potential loss of evidence from a search than the idea of harming someones life over a potentially needless arrest. In June, Dougan self-published his autobiography, BadVolf: The true story of an American cops retaliation against a corrupt system of justice and politics, forcing him to seek political asylum in Russia. It was so convincing that Bradshaws office had to issue a denial, leading to a cycle of real news headlines like Sheriff Bradshaw Wrongly Accused of Telling Boynton Residents to Run Over Protesters?, There are rules to making good fake news, Dougan learned. The best known victim of that attack was John Podesta, and a handful of documents from Podestas Gmail account appeared on the site four months before WikiLeaks published the whole inbox. Florida was the most prized swing state for decades. Do you want the person with the most experience, has done the job and has proven himself over 16 years as the sheriff and has executive experience in actually running major law enforcement organizations? When BadVolf was ever asked why a Russian hacker would care about a Florida sheriff, Dougan always had an answer at the ready. West Palm Beach, FL 33406 He stepped out to investigate, and a dozen FBI agents jumped out of the car and the nearby bushes shouting at him to drop to the ground. A PBSO deputy shot and wounded a man wielding two knives at a Boynton-area shopping plaza, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw says. Dougans journey to Moscow and international intrigue began in Belle Glade, Florida, a five-square-mile agricultural town in a part of Palm Beach County not featured on postcards, where the golf courses give way to sugarcane fields and the median income flattens like roadkill. Refuses to come under the countys Inspector General and Ethics Commission, using PBSO credit card to wine and dine south county condo political kings, renting class-A office space for himself etc. Alex Freeman, who retired as a major in the Riviera Beach Police Department, is trying to unseat Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw in the Democratic Party primary. On the other hand, what can be done to improve relations between PBSOs command staff and road-patrol deputies? Once theyd patted him down and confiscated his cell phone, they told Dougan he was free to go. Four years later, Freeman was named Victims Rights Officer of the Year by Palm Beach County Victim Services. It was a simple one-line database query, once hed loaded all the records, which reduced a list of 700,000 addresses down to the 4,114 that were never supposed to see the light of day. If the contract makes it difficult for supervisors to discipline officers, what can and should the sheriff do? Copyright Info. Dougan says he gets that a lot. He got 66 percent of the vote four years ago against three challengers, avoiding a runoff. But the DNC emails that Dougan says he raced to D.C. to get, the ones he claimed to have uploaded onto a website he created for that express purpose, never appeared there. Id just had a little girl, my daughter, he recalls. Are you a member of any civic groups? What I dont have is 50 years of experience in reckless spending and arrogant behavior, such as providing special treatment to convicted pedophile sex offenders, like [Jeffrey] Epstein, or like losing important evidence in critical cases, or abandoning the troops to move to a high-priced executive office building to lead from the rear instead of the front, all on the backs of the taxpayers and their hard-earned money., Diaz added that Bradshaws leadership is based on political influence more than experience. I am called BadVolf, the page announced. (The voting records leaks appear not to have included abuse victims, who have a higher level of protection under a state-run program.). By the end of his campaign, Dougan had released roughly 14,000 protected address records from at least 20 different Florida counties. The late sex trafficker served only 13 months of his ridiculously light, 18-month sentence in the Palm Beach County Jail on work release. Bradshaw is facing hard questions about his conduct with respect to registered sex offender and alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein after his previous conviction. Our command staff has an excellent relationship with our road-patrol deputies. Send it to The Daily Beasthere. They all needed a taste of their own medicine, and he knew just how to deliver it. But his primary focus was the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, and its elected chief, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. The Palm Beach Sheriff's Office has come far under Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, who is seeking his fifth term. Lauro Diaz, the Republican nominee. Freeman was a major in the Riviera Beach Police Department, which at the time was one of the countys worst. During a recent town hall event to tackle the subject, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw was asked how bad the situation is locally. ". Antisemitism has been on the minds of local authorities as the number of incidents being reported has been going up. When Dougan arrived in Belle Glade in mid-2008, it had lots of brewing issues. He was fired in 1998 for lying during an internal investigation, but he later won his job back after a hearing officer determined that the firing could not be justified because the police departments lawyer only relied upon hearsay evidence. Bradshaw is the most politically powerful persona in the county. In October 2017 Dougan posted a story to one his fake news sites claiming that Ric Bradshaw's second-in-command was a white supremacist nursing fantasies about killing "a black man or a Jew . This doesnt sound like much money, but it turns out to be approximately $4.5 million of taxpayers money at a time when many people in our county have lost jobs due to the pandemic, Diaz said. Dougan says hed reached out to Borodin in advance of his trip, primarily because he wanted to meet as many interesting people as possible on his first visit to Russia. BE SURE TO READ: We Cannot Allow the Left to Destroy Palm Beach County, BE SURE TO READ: Zero Evidence of Threats to Palm Beach County School Board, [Video] 7th Grader Punished For Shirt Saying Only Two, Pushaw Dunks On FLOTUS Spox Who Resigned After, Cruz Defends Justice Thomas-Dems Hate Him Because Hes, Video: Satanists Shred Bible at SatanCon Boston Opening, Nightmare Photos Hatched: Hilarious Easter Bunny Encounters Thatll, News We refer throughout this opinion to "Deputy Lin" and "Sheriff Bradshaw" individually, as each pertinent issue and defense pertains to these defendants separately. Eventually someone in the county government seems to have figured out the flaw in the countys address confidentiality system. I have served in nearly every position in law enforcement, from patrolman to police chief. Similarly, when Bradshaw ran four years ago, the office faced a wave of lawsuits from deputy-involved shootings. He could easily see being arrested now, and if he was thrown in Palm Beach County Jail he doubted hed ever make it to trial. Deputy Dougans interpersonal skills need improvement, a lieutenant wrote in an evaluation, as he does not know how to pull back from a brewing issue.. During Palm Beach County's 2020 elections, some races that were non-partisan since 2004 will now be partisan, including the one for Palm Beach County Sheriff. Technology I was pissed off, says Dougan. News/Commentary I can assure you that those victims and their families and many of us in Palm Beach County dont believe and feel he kept Palm Beach County safe., Listening to the wild accusations of Mr. Freeman wallowing around in the gutter doesnt do us any good, Bradshaw said. Chairman, Florida Sheriffs Emergency Task Force, Region 7; member, chairman, Regional Domestic Security Task Force, Region 7; FBIs Joint Terrorist Task Force Executive Board; Palm Beach County Chiefs of Police, Law Enforcement Planning Council, Police Executive Research Forum, Florida Sheriffs Association; Whos Who in Academic Excellence in America. Sometimes called Putins mentor, Borodin had been Boris Yeltsins top aide. He also defended his agency against the critique that it allowed convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to participate in a work-release program in 2008 that permitted him to be out of jail for six days a week, 12 hours a day. So to track down the home of someone with a confidential address in PAPA, you just had to make note of their parcel number, and then look it up in SITUS. Photo: Getty Images. The encounter had begun with Paul playing her car radio too loud in violation of Floridas traffic code. Prosecutors want to investigate whether Krischer's office has ever told the grand jury the full scale of Epstein's crimes, or whether the prosecutor's office is interfering with the judiciary . For someone who claims to dislike politics, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw has made himself into a political force. On August 24, 2015, BadVolf made his debut. Finally, we must mention the case of Jeffrey Epstein. An Internal Affairs lieutenant named Dean Johnson was eventually charged with four felonies for allegedly leaking information to and about Dougan (he later copped a misdemeanor plea), but Dougan himself emerged unscathed. He could imagined how it could unfold, a sheriffs officer holding a hushed conversation with an inmate: Hey dude, well drop your charges if you kill this guy.. The two exchanged photos and texted frequently, and before long they were talking until 1:00 in the morning. Our policies and practices have to be sound, fair, clear, and understood. He claims the company had long been his preferred choice for hosting his whistle-blower sites. (The Daily Beast turned up no evidence of a link between Borodin and Flyman.). If you looked up one of those people in the countys property tax database, called PAPA, you could see the appraised value of their home and the size of their lot, but the street address field would contain only the words Confidential Record and some asterisks for emphasis. Dougan, though, was soon in hot water of his own. Dougan mastered the dark art of fake news, crafting official-looking websites with names like DCWeekly.com and DCPost.org for his made-up stories. In truth, DCleaks.com was registered at a family owned hosting firm in Romania called THCservers, which also features in a number of identified GRU hack attacks. Rodriguez started poking around right away, but he had trouble finding information on Jessicas target. He says PBSO has succeeded in keeping crime down and that he is a regional and national leader in law enforcement. To a sizable number of fringe conservatives, it goes without saying that the Clintons order hits on the people who get in their way. I had no idea who he was., Bradshaw noted that he has since abolished work release. Dougan stands by his story about registering the domain through the Malaysian hosting firm Shinjuro. He oversees 4,300 employees and 5,000 volunteers with a budget of more than $788 million. I arrived, but the embassy was shuttered until Monday. The Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office has six departments Legal Affairs, Law Enforcement Operations, Community Operations, Corrections, Support Services, and Administrative Services. Before he ever came back we had all the pictures., The talk of hacking perked up Jessicas interest even more. Dougan claims his involvement mostly ended at that point, but that he sometimes logged into the server and saw the whistle-blower and his friends uploading additional files. Bradshaw is seeking his fifth term in the Aug. 18 Democratic primary. It seemed puzzling from the start that Dougan, hot on the heels of an FBI raid and already planning his escape, would take a couple of days off to physically transport a zip file small enough to be sent as an email attachment. Dougan kept up the conceit that BadVolf was hacking into county networks and stealing the secret address data, and his notional Russian hacker starting attracting national attention. Neal H. Moritz's Original Film (Fast & Furious franchise) will produce with Rocket Science, as well as Stallone and Braden Aftergood's Balboa Productions. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw has said a rise in calls for service is part of the reason why his agency's budget has risen sharply in recent years and now accounts for nearly . In May, according to Dougan, the Kremlins RT network shot video for a feature-length documentary on Dougan. Lewis was certain that Dougan was visiting Russia to partner with that countrys cybercriminals. Editors note: Sheriff Bradshaw completed this questionnaire for the Democratic primary in August. Hed learned, for example, that the FBI was working with the sheriffs office against him, at least according to Lewis telephonic pillow talk. But he still did work for Sheriff Bradshaw. Dougan posted the full audio of his calls with Lewis, along with screenshots of their text messages. Bradshaw, a Democrat, was first elected in 2004 and reelected to another four-year term in 2020, easily crushing his opponent in the Democratic Primary and the Republican Candidate in the general election. The Sun Sentinel endorses Ric Bradshaw for Palm Beach County sheriff. In the months and years that followed, Dougans website became a consistent source of insider dirt: a leaked affidavit about a former SWAT commander accused of stealing painkillers from a dying deputy; purchase orders showing the office spent nearly $80,000 on barbecue grills; a photo of officers posing with a topless woman on a Palm Beach golf course. PBSO seeking $740 million, a $31 million increase, in next years budget, to pay $6 million of a $22.5 million verdict won by Dontrell Stephens, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. - Palm County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw expressed outrage last week, saying that the murder-suicide at a Royal Palm Beach Publix could have been avoided if someone came forward . In 2013, Lewis said, the bureau had been on the brink of arresting Dougan for allegedly providing false information on his FAA pilots certification, failing to disclose that he suffered the potentially-disqualifying neurological illness Tourettes Syndrome. Now he had his own personal online tormentor. An attorney representing victims has said Epstein engaged in improper sexual conduct while he was in the program.