Former Key West Police Lt. Thomas Chapp is suing the City, alleging that he was fired back in 1997 without due process. The trial is scheduled to start here Monday morning in the Federal Courthouse.
But what makes this trial really interesting is that it's not really about what the City allegedly did to Lt. Chapp. It's about what City Manager Julio Avael— backed by then-Mayor Dennis Wardlow and City Commissioners Harry Bethel, Percy Curry and Merili McCoy— did to then-Police Chief Ray Peterson.
Chapp was just a pawn in the game. Chapp's lawyer will argue that Avael simply used Chapp to try to "get" Peterson and that he didn't much care if Chapp's career was destroyed in the process.
Expected to testify at the trial is former City Attorney Diane Covan. Her testimony could be explosive! She also blames Avael for pushing her out of City government in October 1996. She's been waiting a long time to get even and this may just be her chance. She was an insider at City Hall when the plot to "get Peterson" was cooking. She knows the secrets and she may be ready to tell them all.
Here's the background:
After former City Manager Felix Cooper had been literally run out of town for asserting in an interview in Key West The Newspaper that "No locals are qualified to be City Manager," Key West native Julio Avael was hired as City Manager in October 1996 amid reports that he had assured Wardlow and others that, in return for the job, he would "get rid" of Peterson.
Wardlow and his political supporters were reportedly mad at Peterson because they suspected that it was he who called in the FBI to investigate Wardlow on bribery charges. Wardlow was indicted by the feds but was subsequently acquitted— even though John Bigler, the attorney accused of giving Wardlow the bribes, pled no contest, gave up his license to practice law and left town in disgrace.
But, then, the Florida Ethics Commission investigated the same charges and found Wardlow guilty of influence peddling and fined him $12,500. Go figure.
In early 1997, Avael was in the process of building a literal "book" of what we now know were trumped-up charges against Peterson to try to justify firing him. We know that all the charges were bogus because, when Peterson was finally forced to retire, part of the settlement agreement was that City officials would eat crow and sign a statement to the effect that all of the charges were "unfounded."
Willing participants in this treachery were many members of the police union, the Police Benevolent Association (PBA). And, in fact, some of these disgruntled cops happily cooperated with Avael, filing bogus "charges" against their boss, Chief Peterson, to help fill the City Manager's "Blue Book".
But to most citizens who were paying attention, these charges were so obviously trumped-up that the entire sham was downright embarrassing. Nobody could believe that Avael was really going to try to pull such a stunt— to frame one of the most popular police chiefs in the history of the City with borderline silly charges, and then try to fire him based on those charges.
Here's a couple of examples of those "charges":
During an informal off-duty telephone conversation with Officer Tommy Walker, Chief Peterson joked, "I ought to kick you ass over that." At that time, Walker was vice president of the PBA. Subsequently, one of the charges in Avael's Blue Book was Walker's complaint that Peterson "threatened" him.
We're not making this up.
Walker has since left the department and, in a parting shot, was critical of new Police Chief Buz Dillon, as well as Avael.
"We stood up for Avael during the Peterson fiasco," Walker said, "then he betrayed us."
The local PBA chapter has also fallen on bad times. Late last year, the chapter was placed on probation by the state organization after "inaccuracies" were discovered in the local PBA checkbook. What goes around comes around.
Here's another example of one of Avael's Blue Book charges, this one a complaint by Capt. William McNeill:
In October 1996, McNeill's son was injured during a classroom scuffle at Key West High School. When Capt. McNeill learned about his son's injury, he cursed two of his detectives, loudly berating them for failing to quickly arrest the other boy involved and put him in jail— even though the horseplay incident had reportedly been started by the McNeill boy.
Chief Peterson gave Capt. McNeill a written warning about his behavior. But McNeill complained that Peterson hadn't talked to him first. That complaint became one of the charges in Avael's Blue Book— a book of charges that Avael said warranted firing the chief.
Subsequently, McNeill was one of the officers Avael assigned to pull together all of the "charges" against Peterson.
At that time, McNeill headed the prestigious Detective Division. Today, under Chief Dillon, he handles only administrative duties.
It was in this tense atmosphere of the City Manager and the PBA against Chief Peterson that Lt. Chapp innocently decided to write a long, rambling philosophical letter to the editor in early January 1997. Among other topics, the letter addressed "sensitivity" within the police department. Chapp also expressed his opinion that the firing of guns in Bahama Village on New Year's Eve was OK because it was, he said, a "cultural" thing— and everybody seems to know to stay off the streets for a few minutes after Midnight.
A portion of that letter first appeared in Key West the Newspaper on Jan. 10, 1997. The full text of the letter was later published in the Key West Citizen.
Desperate to pile up more charges against Peterson, Avael eagerly jumped on the Chapp letter. He said that he and Mayor Wardlow had received dozens of complaints about the letter and— get this— he blamed Chief Peterson for "allowing" the letter to be published. In fact, Avael apparently considered this matter so serious that he reprimanded Peterson, rather than Chapp. And that reprimand became Charge No. 1 in the Blue Book!
Really, we're not making this up.
Chapp then began to dig a hole for himself by going, off-duty and in plain clothes, to the offices of Avael and Mayor Wardlow and demanding to see their phone logs and calendars. He said he wanted to see proof that his letter had generated complaints from the public.
But Avael immediately labeled Chapp's efforts a "corruption investigation" on behalf of Chief Peterson. And both he and Wardlow filed Internal Affairs (IA) charges against him. Avael said that he was "fearful" of Chapp because "he carried a gun."
Three other members of the PBA had already filed IA charges against Chapp because of the letter.
It was Chapp's failure to show up at the IA hearings that led to his firing, City officials say. But Chapp points out that all five hearing were scheduled the same day and he was too ill to attend.
He had been under the care of a physician for hypertension and chronic pancreatitis. He also said he didn't think the hearings would be fair— and he wanted to go before the Civil Service Board. But, he said, the City denied him that avenue of appeal.
When Chapp filed his lawsuit in mid-1997, Covan was his lawyer. But she has recently been disqualified because she is to be a witness. Chapp's new attorney is Bill Friedlander— who was, incidentally, Wardlow's lawyer during the recent Mosquito Control Board job fix fiasco. He is also one of County Attorney Jim Hendrick's favorite out-of-town attorneys. He is currently working on several "special assignments" for Hendrick.
During the more than two years that the Chapp suit has been active, there have been dozens of motions, counter motions, amended complaints, hearings and rehearings. Attorney Covan was even accused of trying to "extort" a monetary settlement out of the City by threatening to turn evidence of corruption over to the State Attorney unless the City settled. Avael called in the Florida Dept. of Investigation to look into that allegation.
The stack of paperwork for the case is about a foot high.
But the trial finally starts Monday. It should be interesting. Will the secrets of the plot to "get" Chief Peterson finally be revealed? Stay tuned.