Three weeks ago, Key West Police Lt. Al Flowers was forced to resign to avoid charges of official misconduct— he allegedly caused false information to appear on an arrest affidavit and he allegedly charged a suspect with a felony he didn't commit. Question: Did Flowers just make up the false information? Or did he get it from a source? According to documents obtained from the State Attorney's Office, Flowers may have obtained that information from a source— and that source may have been Attorney David Paul Horan.
Horan's daughter had allegedly been battered in a bar fight here in October 1998 by 23-year-old Camillo Delpellaro. Attorney Horan got personally involved after he learned that Delpellaro had not been arrested. Horan told investigators that he may have learned through a source at the Sheriff's Office that Delpellaro was wanted in Canada. But, according to Sheriff Rick Roth, it would have been improper for a Sheriff's Office employee to run such a check for Horan or to share such information with him.
Several years ago, then-Judge Richard Fowler asked a court employee to run criminal background checks on a political opponent's family members. That information subsequently appeared on an illegal campaign flyer. Investigators were able to identify the employee who conducted the check by tracking the computer request to one of the terminals at the jail. But this is not possible in this case. Roth said that those records are purged after 3-6 months.
Key West Police Sgt. Alan Newby, who subsequently ran a warrants check on Delpellaro, told investigators that Delpellaro had not been wanted in Canada or anywhere else in October 1998. So . . . was the information that Horan said he received from his "source" at the Sheriff's Office bad information? Did he have a source at all? Or did he simply make up that wanted-in-Canada scenario?
Last week, we faxed a memo over to Attorney Horan asking him to reveal his source at the Sheriff's Office. At presstime, he had not responded.
Regardless of where Horan may or may not have gotten the bad information, did he subsequently pass it along to Lt. Flowers? Horan told investigators that he called Flowers personally and "used influence to get Flowers to do something that was his job anyway." Horan didn't say what that "something" was— but, after he called Flowers, an arrest affidavit showed up on the desk of Judge Susan Vernon. It asked for a warrant for Delpellaro's arrest on battery and stalking charges— with these words tacked onto the end: "Delpellaro is a wanted man and it is my opinion that he has been hiding out in Key West . . . and he could possibly cause harm to anyone who tries to capture him." This was, apparently, false information, added on to trick the judge into ordering a large bond. It worked. Vernon slapped Delpellaro with a $75,000 bond.
Who was the source of the false information that Delpellaro was "wanted"? Nobody at the Police Department seems to know. Officer Garfield Williams signed the affidavit, swearing that it was true. But he told investigators that he can't remember if he was instructed to prepare the affidavit by someone else.
That someone else was Al Flowers, according to the State Attorney's investigation report. Did Flowers get that information from Attorney Horan? Neither Flowers nor Horan want to talk about it.
Stay tuned.