Days after Vero Beach 32963 exposed in February 2022 that Sheriff Eric Flowers was engaged in a clandestine extra-marital affair, he offered a public apology to his betrayed wife, stunned supporters and confused deputies.
Flowers also assured the community that his illicit relationship had not interfered with the performance of his duties and promised the fallout from his disturbing lack of honor would not negatively impact the Sheriff’s Office’s operations.
But two years later, as he campaigns for another term as the county’s top law enforcement officer, he has proven his word is as hollow as his apology.
Flowers’ challengers in his quest for re-election have used this summer’s candidate forums and debates to attack more than the sheriff’s lack of leadership, accountability and transparency.
Without specifically mentioning the affair, they’ve also raised compelling questions about his character, credibility and judgment, saying Flowers cannot be trusted to do what’s best for the Sheriff’s Office or our community.
They’re not alone.
Interviews with current and now-former deputies of varying ranks, including erstwhile members of his command staff and inner circle, have produced alarming allegations about Flowers’ conduct and the consequences of his actions while the affair was ongoing.
These allegations have been made and/or verified by the two former deputy chiefs who ranked No. 3 in Flowers’ original chain of command, or by at least one other ex-member of the command staff and current deputies.
The former command staff member and deputies still working for the Sheriff’s Office agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, fearing retribution from Flowers, who they said doesn’t tolerate criticism or dissent.
“The fear of retaliation has gotten worse since the affair became public,” one of the deputies said, “because he’s worried about getting re-elected.”
Flowers did not respond to an email sent last Friday morning to him – and copied to Sergeant Kevin Jaworski, the agency’s public information deputy – seeking comment on the allegations.
Not all the allegations were directly linked to Flowers’ marital infidelity, but those that do include claims that:
- His personality and behavior suddenly changed when the affair began, and he became noticeably distracted and was often absent, allowing command staff members to run the agency.
- He went into a panic after he was caught and confronted by his then-wife, and was barely able to function at work, his psyche plummeting to a point where he was heard telling a friend in the agency, “I’m a dumpster fire.”
- He was so worried the affair would derail his chances of getting re-elected that he concocted a bogus complaint against then-deputy chief Milo Thornton, whom he saw as a potential political threat, and demoted him to captain.
Flowers demoted Thornton even though a sham, 11-week Internal Affairs Division investigation that he ordered – the then-deputy chief was never interviewed – uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing.
The shabby treatment provided the impetus for Thornton, who said he and the sheriff were on “excellent terms” before the affair became public, to launch his campaign to challenge Flowers in the Aug. 20 election.
“I remember we were in Jacksonville when he got caught cheating on his wife,” Thornton said, referring to the site of a sheriff’s conference in late January 2022. “That’s when everything changed between us.
“We were at dinner, and out of nowhere he says, ‘People are telling me you’re going to run against me, and that’s never going to happen,’” he added. “That’s what my demotion was all about – trying to undermine my credibility so I couldn’t run against him.”
Other deputies confirmed that Flowers, desperate to find evidence of misconduct he could use to get rid of Thornton, asked them to help.
“His quote to me was: ‘I have to fire this guy. Find anything you can on him,’” one deputy said.
As deputy chief, Thornton – who was the highest-ranking Black law enforcement officer in the county’s history – oversaw the Sheriff’s Office’s Corrections Division, which included all operations at the county jail, as well as the agency’s School Safety, Community Affairs and Judicial Services divisions.
When Thornton was unjustly demoted, he not only was hit with a $10,000-per-year pay cut, but he also was reassigned to head the School Safety Division, which essentially banished him to an office at the School District’s administration building.
“I wasn’t allowed to go to the Sheriff’s Office,” he said, “except for meetings.”
Thornton, a Republican, filed to run for sheriff in March 2023, but he continued to work for the Sheriff’s Office until he retired in June, complying with the state’s “Resign-to-Run” law.
Perhaps the worst of the allegations involved Flowers’ refusal to act after being told repeatedly over several months that one of his female deputies might’ve been the victim of on-the-job abuse by one of her supervisors.
“Tell her to hang on,” deputies said was Flowers’ response.
It wasn’t until another deputy alerted then-Deputy Chief Lonnie Rich that the matter – which, it was later revealed, included not only verbal abuse and sexual harassment, but also sexual assault – was taken seriously by the agency.
The perpetrator, who was a lieutenant, chose to resign after being summoned by Internal Affairs for questioning.
An IA investigation sustained charges of “sexual harassment” and “abuse of an employee,” and deputies said a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent who reviewed the Sheriff’s Office’s report called the transgressions “one of the worst cases of abuse” he had seen.
Deputies said the lieutenant would – in front of other agency members – demean the victim with sexist and disparaging remarks, talking about her buttocks, calling her a “slut,” and making comments that referred to graphic sexual acts.
The FDLE revoked the lieutenant’s certification, which prohibits him from being a law enforcement officer in Florida.
Rich, who retired from the Sheriff’s Office amid a dispute with Flowers in March 2023, said he responded immediately to the situation because someone needed to.
“Within two hours of her telling me what was happening,” Rich said, “I had the guy on administrative leave and out of the agency.”
Deputies said Rich’s take-charge response wasn’t uncommon, adding that he capably ran the agency when the sheriff was missing and commanded the respect that has eluded Flowers.
At times, though, even Rich became frustrated with the boss’ lack of engagement during the affair.
“There were days that would go by when nobody knew where Eric was,” he said. “I’d have operational stuff I needed to run by him – or just want to let him know what was going on – and I couldn’t find him. So I’d ask his secretary, and she’d say she didn’t know.”
Another disturbing allegation involved an unscheduled March 2022 visit to Flowers’ office by his then-mistress’ husband, who angrily confronted him in a one-sided conversation that erupted into a loud and hostile verbal altercation.
As the drama was unfolding, in fact, Rich and now-retired captain Pat White became concerned for the sheriff’s safety, rushing to Flowers’ office and escorting the husband out of the building before any real harm could be done.
Rich was flabbergasted that Flowers would let an understandably irate husband walk into his office without first making sure he wasn’t armed.
“We know people commit crimes of passion,” Rich said. “He could’ve come in and just started blazing away.”
This newspaper learned of the incident shortly after it occurred, and we filed a public records request for the surveillance footage. Flowers refused to provide the video or any other documentation of the husband’s visit, citing unspecified security concerns.
Clearly, Flowers didn’t want anyone to know about the embarrassing confrontation, which was yet another reminder of the affair that tarnished his Boy Scout image, sickened once-loyal supporters and still haunts his campaign for a second term.
It was also another example of Flowers telling us only what he wants us to know about what he’s doing at the Sheriff’s Office – a practice deputies say began long before his affair.
In the first days of his administration, the deputies said, Flowers implemented a plan to dodge Florida’s Sunshine Law by requesting that his command staff members and other inner-circle confidants not use their agency-issued phones to transmit text messages, leave voicemails or send emails, all of which are subject to public records requests.
Instead, the sheriff wanted his upper-echelon deputies to install on their phones apps that would enable them to communicate with each other and him – one to one or in groups – via an encrypted messaging service.
Those communications could not be traced and, if desired, the app could be set to permanently delete messages after a designated time period.
“Somewhere during the week he was sworn in, Eric came to my office and had me download an app called Signal, and he said, ‘That’s how we’re going to communicate,’” Rich said. “He told me to never call him on his work phone. All calls had to go to his personal phone.”
Rich said he has a screenshot of the sheriff setting up the app to delete messages after 24 hours.
Flowers ignored his agency phone and used only the phone he had purchased to conduct campaign business prior to his election, deputies said, adding that the sheriff also eschewed his agency email account.
“Eric doesn’t check his emails,” one deputy said. “His secretary checks them and lets him know if there’s anything he needs to see.”
Thornton said he was concerned about the legality of using apps for agency communications and continued to exchange text messages with Flowers.
It proved to be a wise decision: Thornton has saved Flowers’ text messages praising him for the “amazing job” the then-deputy chief was doing to improve operations at the jail.
“Zero complaints about you,” Flowers wrote to Thornton in an October 2021 text message.
Three months later, Flowers suspended him, claiming he had received numerous complaints of a hostile work environment at the jail – even though Thornton was doing exactly what the sheriff wanted him to do.
Thornton didn’t publicly share those text messages until the final weeks of the campaign.
There was no way, however, Flowers could hide the departures of four members of his command staff – two deputy chiefs and two captains – from the agency.
During the first quarter of last year, both Rich and White abruptly decided to retire after spending lengthy careers working to rise to their lofty and well-paid positions. Rich was 52 and White was 46.
“Two guys in those positions? At their ages? That’s unusual,” Deryl Loar, who spent 12 years as sheriff before getting elected to the County Commission, said at the time. “That’s a sign of something.”
It was a sign that at least some members of Flowers’ inner circle had lost faith in his judgment and ability to effectively lead the agency.
The fact that Rich was pushed out actually says more about Flowers’ fatal flaws as a sheriff than it does about the no-nonsense deputy chief on whom he relied to maintain discipline and get things done.
Rich, who was willing to play the heavy, could’ve retired sooner, but Flowers asked him to stay on and help him build the foundation for his budding administration.
His reward? Flowers accused Rich of bad-mouthing him at White’s retirement party, where the outgoing captain said – with no serious intent, obviously – he was going to run for sheriff.
Rich fiercely denied speaking poorly of the sheriff, and others who attended the gathering corroborated his story. Flowers, however, continued to believe the bad information he was given.
And he was furious.
Remember: This incident occurred at a time when Loar and fellow County Commissioner Joe Flescher, a former New York City police officer and local deputy, had gone public with their concerns about the increasing turmoil and lack of leadership at the Sheriff’s Office.
Seeing the agency in crisis, both Loar and Flescher had said publicly they were considering a run to replace Flowers in 2024, though neither followed through.
That was the backdrop of an oft-delayed, fate-altering meeting that eventually took place between Flowers and Rich in the sheriff’s office.
The clash was fueled by Rich’s decision to use a Sheriff’s Office helicopter, which was scheduled to go out on a routine patrol that afternoon, to fly the retiring White to his Fellsmere-area home after his last day with the agency.
“With his career, he deserved it,” Rich said, adding that the helicopter pilot did not make a special trip to accommodate the request – and that Flowers knew in advance.
“After the staff meeting, I’m sitting there talking to Eric, and he says, ‘You’re flying him home, huh?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am. He’s had a hell of a career, and I think it’s a good way to send him out.’ And Eric says, ‘Good.’”
It wasn’t until after White’s retirement party that Flowers claimed Rich wasn’t authorized to use the agency’s helicopter – a false charge the sheriff attempted to use to push the deputy chief into retirement.
Rich reacted as you’d expect from someone who had spent two-plus years taking on the difficult personnel-related tasks he said Flowers was too cowardly to confront.
“I F-bombed him until the cows came home,” Rich said of his last visit to Flowers’ office, where he angrily referred to the sheriff in harsh and derogatory terms, chastising him for wrongly accusing him of making comments at White’s party.
Flowers responded by slamming his fist on his desk and telling Rich he was being placed on administrative leave, and the deputy chief stormed out of the office.
Days later, Rich said, he learned there would be no IA investigation because none was necessary. The helicopter ride was no longer a factor. He was told his behavior in Flowers’ office was grounds for dismissal.
So he retired, protecting what he described as “tens of thousands of dollars in sick time.”
Rich had seen enough, anyway.
“The job is too big for Eric,” he said.
The propaganda on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, however, paints an entirely different picture of the agency and its leader, who has relied heavily on social media and a flurry of recent press conferences to keep his name, face and full-dress uniform in front of the community.
That’s how an incumbent campaigns when his challengers have raised more money. But that’s not where you’ll get an accurate portrayal of Flowers’ performance, which, deputies say, has caused morale and trust within the agency to crater.
“He knows it’s bad,” one deputy said, “but he doesn’t want to hear about it.”
When Flowers was elected in a November 2020 landslide – at age 40 – most of us believed he would be our sheriff for the next 20 years.
Then we learned of his affair, which exposed the hypocrisy of his January 2021 inaugural-speech demand that his deputies embrace their oaths of office as they would wedding vows.
Our Sheriff’s Office hasn’t been the same since.