Chief Judge Mark Jones, Court Clerk Danny Kolhage and the State Attorney's Office continue to plod through an investigation of allegations that Lisa Roeser, the County's former chief court reporter, "double-dipped"— handled freelance jobs on county time.
The fact that the investigation started almost nine months ago has some government-watchers suggesting that a "coverup" is underway.
But Kolhage said Tuesday that he hopes to release the results of a comprehensive audit of the court reporters' time sheets and other records by mid-June. Kolhage launched the audit last September after Key West The Newspaper broke the story.
Kolhage said the preliminary audit report was sent to Chief Judge Jones earlier this year for review. Kolhage said he hoped to have Judge Jones' comments this week and that his objective would be to produce a public report within a week after that.
But that report may not be complete, Kolhage said. He said that, very early in the conduct of the audit, some of the findings were turned over to the State Attorney's Office for criminal investigation.
"As long as that information is under investigation by the State Attorney, we can't release it," Kolhage said.
An inside source who has seen the information that was turned over to the State Attorney said that, if it were to be made public, it would be highly embarrassing to both the judiciary and the State Attorney's Office.
"Therefore," a former county court reporter said, "you may see the State Attorney keep his `investigation' ongoing `forever' to keep the information from being released publicly."
Last September, Roeser abruptly quit her job after KWTN called Court Administrator Theresa Westerfield and started asking questions about the double-dipping allegations.
That investigation uncovered at least two instances in which Roeser reported on her timesheets that she was at work in her County office when, in reality, she was across town handling freelance jobs.
Two former county court reporters, Kathi Fegers and Rex Lear, have also charged that the judges knew about the double dipping and took no action.
Both Fegers and Lear wrote letters to then-Chief Judge Sandra Taylor reporting Roeser's alleged double-dipping. Both said they also sent copies of their letters to all the other judges— but none responded. Judge Taylor has since said that she did not call for an internal investigation at the time because she thought the charges were too general.
The National Court Reporters Association's (NCRA) Committee on Ethics has already recommended that Roeser be reprimanded. But KWTN has learned that NCRA committee members are waiting on Kolhage's audit report and the results of the State Attorney's investigation to determine if more serious sanctions may be appropriate.
Roeser told the NCRA that the incorrect timesheet entries were inadvertent and that she had not intended to double-dip.