VERO BEACH — An Ohio man tapped just days ago to be the City of Vero Beach’s next attorney was previously ousted from his high-profile job in Palm Beach County after getting arrested twice on prostitution charges.
Daniel Collette, 66, was approved for the $120,000 a year Vero Beach City Attorney post on March 6. Officials in the city’s human resources department said last week that they had not conducted a full background check on Collette.
A cursory online check of Collette revealed previous media articles regarding his arrests in Palm Beach County. According to those reports, Collette was one of 62 men who were arrested in a prostitution sting in West Palm Beach in January 1993.
Councilman Jay Kramer, who did not vote for Collette as his first choice, said he’d rather not comment on the situation because he was in Orlando Thursday chaperoning a school trip.
“I haven’t got the information, but I’ll get the information when I get back,” Kramer said.
Kramer said he would like to speak with the city attorneys to find out what the implications of the information might be. Kramer said the matter would need to be discussed by the council.
At the time, Collette was making $80,000 a year as assistant county attorney. A prominent Catholic priest was also nabbed in the sting. Both were accused of soliciting an undercover police officer for sex.
Collette was suspended for 10 days, his pay was cut by $25,000 and he was demoted to the position of county water utility official. Collette had been a deacon at his Baptist church in West Palm Beach. He resigned from that position after the arrest.
Less than two and a half years later, Collette was arrested again for offering another undercover officer $10 for sex.
“There comes a time when you have to let go in order to hold on, and there comes a time when you have to be honest with yourself,” Collette was quoted as saying in a 1995 article in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. “God has definitely revealed to me that I have a problem.”
After his second arrest, he was asked to resign.
“I certainly tried to save his job,” then-Palm Beach County Water Utilities Director Bevin Beaudet told the Sun-Sentinel. “…I tried to put together a punishment severe enough that would allow him to get treatment and continue to contribute to the department. But in the long run, the seriousness of his actions was such that it wasn’t possible.”
It doesn’t appear that Collette fought the ouster.
“This has happened to me before and I don’t think I recognized that there was a problem,” Collette told the paper. “I think this was the best thing for me and the county.”
Collette is in good standing with the Florida Bar Association, but his 1995 arrest led to a permanent mark on his record and stinging letter in his file.
“While your misconduct was deemed to be minor, it nonetheless can have the effect of casting the legal profession in disrepute thereby reinforcing the perception held by substantial portion of the public that lawyers are not worthy of public trust and confidence,” said James Wilkerson, Jr. the chairman of the 15th Judicial Circuit Grievance Committee.
There were not any disciplinary reports filed with the Ohio Supreme Court on Collette.
Collette is currently an assistant county prosecutor with Hancock County, Ohio, and a city councilman in Findlay, Ohio.
Collette won the Vero Beach City Council’s nomination for City Attorney by one vote over second place finisher Jim Wilson. The council chose Collette because he gave the members an analysis of the Florida Power and Light contract.
Councilwoman Tracy Carroll Thursday afternoon said she had been on the telephone nonstop since about 10 a.m. dealing with the Daniel Collette issue and that she had seen some news reports sent to her by email detailing the arrests.
Based upon the information she had, Carroll said the arrests were 17 years ago, and that, during the two hours she spent with Collette, she didn’t find any reason to question whether he was a person of sound judgment.
“He was the deacon at his church and it seems like they have forgiven him. If his wife has forgiven him and his family has forgiven him, I don’t see where it’s up to me to make that moral judgment,” Carrol said. “Mr. Collette addressed the issue in a letter yesterday and I understand that his wife wrote a letter about it today and it’s to his credit that they did that.”
Carroll said she was under the impression, from statements made during Tuesday’s city council meeting, that background checks had already been performed on Collette and that his references had already been checked.
As of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Human Resources staffer Lynn George said she did not have the background check to provide in response to a public records request. George said HR Dynamics would be checking Collette’s references. City Clerk Tammy Vock confirmed Thursday afternoon that neither the background check, the routine check with the Florida Bar nor the results of a reference check were on file with the City Clerk’s office.
Carroll noted that Collette was “only 49” when the most recent arrest occurred and that “it was when his children were little.”
She said that, over time, people change and she didn’t see the two arrests as a reason to automatically eliminate Collette from being eligible to hold the post of City Attorney. The existence of these old arrests, she said, were not enough to take Collette out of the running.
Carroll said she spent one hour interviewing Collette and another hour with him at a Rotary meeting, as he was a visiting Rotarian to Vero Beach when he came to town for his interview.
She said she was impressed by his knowledge and by the fact that he was also a current elected official, so he seemed to understand the needs of the city council for solid legal representation.
Carroll wondered whether or not the issue of the Florida arrests had been known and vetted during Collette’s campaign for election to his current post.
Staff Writer Lisa Zahner contributed to this report.
