There’s something you should know, now that the State Attorney’s Office has decided the case presented by the Sheriff’s Office last month lacked the probable cause necessary to charge Vicki Sidles with a crime for using her Twitter page to post disparaging comments about School Board Vice Chairman Tiffany Justice:
The detective who investigated the cyber-stalking complaint Justice filed against the longtime school district employee also didn’t believe a prosecutable case could be made.
In fact, Assistant State Attorney Steve Wilson wrote – in the first paragraph of his April 25 letter denying Det. Aaron’s Scranton’s affidavit seeking an arrest warrant – that the Sheriff’s Office submitted the case to his office while conceding the “facts did not appear to rise to the level of probable cause for the alleged offense . . .”
So why did the Sheriff’s Office push for a first-degree misdemeanor charge with a case it didn’t believe in?
Why waste prosecutors’ time with a complaint that, from the outset, had little chance of producing a charge, let alone a conviction?
Why not simply tell Justice that the investigation into her complaint, which she filed with the Sheriff’s Office in January, uncovered not nearly enough evidence to arrest Sidles, based on the criteria set forth in Florida statutes and previous court rulings?
We’ll get back to that – because, first, there’s something else you should know about Sidles’ case, which is also being investigated by the school district.
Unlike Det. Scranton, who explained to Sidles the reason she was under investigation when he questioned her for the first time at her workplace, the school district’s human resources department didn’t extend the same courtesy.
When Sidles’ supervisor in the school district’s purchasing department told her last month that she was being relieved of her duties, suspended with pay and sent home pending an investigation, he refused to tell her why.
That’s because our school district, when investigating allegations of wrongdoing by employees, operates under procedures that don’t require employees to be told what they’ve been accused of.
Worse, such disclosures are prohibited.
According to Cristen Maddux, the district’s public information officer, employees are informed – either verbally, in writing or both – that an investigation is being conducted.
“The employee is not given the specifics of the investigation, only that there is a potential violation of policy,” she wrote in an email after consulting with the district’s HR department. “This is done in order to protect all parties involved.”
That’s baloney.
Then again, so was the HR department’s initial response to my phone calls seeking an explanation of the district’s policies and procedures for conducting investigations into alleged wrongdoing by employees.
Both Michelle Olk, director of employee and labor relations, and Edwina Suit, executive director for human resources, offered identical responses: “I can’t comment on that.”
Obviously, they correctly assumed I was addressing Sidles’ situation, but I didn’t ask about any particular investigation – just the process the district follows in every case. And they didn’t want to tell me.
It wasn’t until I contacted School Board Chairman Laura Zorc, who forwarded my written request via email to now-outgoing Superintendent Mark Rendell, board attorney Suzanne D’Agresta and Maddux, that I received the information I sought.
Suspended employees aren’t the only ones district administrators want to keep in the dark, it seems.
Make no mistake, though: Keeping suspended employees in the dark is done solely to protect the school district, which has conducted far too many ill-conceived and even bogus investigations since Rendell’s arrival four years ago, wasting hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars.
It’s all part of a culture of intimidation, bullying and retaliation – from the top down – that has plagued our schools for far too long, destroying morale and prompting the departures of high-quality but beaten-down employees, particularly teachers.
These employee-investigation procedures aren’t merely wrongheaded. They’re unnecessarily cruel, especially for the many who are exonerated. They’re also unfair.
Usually, when employees are suspended, the district’s HR department follows up with letters sent to their homes using certified mail. Those letters, which explain the process, also inform the employees that they are prohibited from discussing the investigations with their work colleagues until the investigations have been completed.
The district claims that the don’t-talk mandate ensures the integrity of its investigations, which is ridiculous. The district also warns, however, that employees who violate the directive could face disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Which is disturbing.
Put yourself in the accused employee’s place: Rendell’s henchmen are free to discuss your case with your co-workers as part of their investigation, but you can’t.
It’s no surprise, then, that Zorc has expressed concern about the number of employee investigations, the district’s investigation procedures and the superintendent’s power to order often-costly investigations without notifying the School Board.
“We can’t ignore the increased numbers of investigations as we look forward,” Zorc said. “Not only are these investigations draining funds, but they are very intimidating and sometimes an over-exaggeration of authority.
“Investigations are sometimes needed,” she added, “but they should be the very last resort.”
Zorc said she plans to “bring policy suggestions forward” after Rendell departs and an interim superintendent is in place.
Rendell is leaving to become the principal at Cocoa Beach Junior/Senior High School – he announced his resignation last month and his final day here is May 24.
Among the possible changes Zorc wants the board to discuss is a requirement that employees under investigation be told of the allegations made against them at the time they’re suspended.
“I do have a problem with that,” Zorc said, of the current policy of keeping employees in the dark.
Sidles, meanwhile, has a problem with the district’s decision to suspend her, albeit with pay, over what she believes were her Twitter comments about Justice and her decision to start an online petition urging the School Board to fire Rendell.
She said she has consulted with an attorney to provide legal counsel if the district tries to take punitive action against her, adding, “If I lose my job or they demote me over this, they will definitely be hearing from me and my attorney.”
Sidles won’t need a criminal defense attorney, though.
According to Wilson’s letter to Scranton, Florida’s cyber-stalking law and legal precedent required prosecutors to be able to prove that Sidles’ tweets: specifically and directly targeted Justice; would have caused any reasonable person to suffer from the “substantial emotional distress” cited by Justice; and served no “legitimate purpose,” as interpreted by state law.
The facts presented in Scranton’s affidavit failed on all three counts, especially the third – because, as Wilson stated, Sidles’ comments were “almost exclusively” directed at elected officials in the performance of their public duties.
“The opinions expressed may have been colorful and even viewed as hurtful or inappropriate, but that does not rise to the level of criminal conduct under the statute,” Wilson wrote. “The ‘no legitimate purpose’ element has been broadly construed to cover a wide range of conduct.
“In the facts presented in the affidavit, given the public position of the individuals, it will not be possible to prove that there is no legitimate purpose for the alleged conduct.”
Wilson also wrote that, using the “reasonable person standard as the guiding paradigm,” the law sets high the bar for proving the “substantial emotional distress” element of the crime – and Scranton’s case fell short.
As for Sidles’ tweets and the online-petition comments being directed specifically at Justice, Wilson wrote: “Although the posts linked to Tiffany Justice’s Twitter name, that does not mean that the posts were sent to Tiffany Justice. Rather, the posts were made on a public website that would allow anyone who had access to Twitter to review them.”
Additionally, Wilson wrote that Justice had to “affirmatively go to (Sidles’) Twitter page in order to see the posts.”
So, under Florida law, Sidles did not commit a crime when she posted social-media comments that were sometimes-critical, occasionally disparaging and often implied Justice engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Rendell.
Sidles won’t be arrested.
Will she be fired? Not likely.
Even if Rendell rushes through the investigation and recommends that Sidles’ employment be terminated, the School Board must approve it.
That probably won’t happen.
The last thing our school district needs now is another disruptive controversy, another costly legal battle, another unnecessary investigation.
And the board knows it.
