Sheriff Kevin Beary

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Sheriff Kevin Beary

Public pays to clean up yard of home that Sheriff Beary owns

05/27/2006 - A Winter Park home owned by Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary is such a neighborhood eyesore that city officials cleaned up the lawn Thursday on the taxpayers' dime, officials said.

The Orwin Manor home has been choked with 5-foot-tall weeds, neighbors said. A tarp from Hurricane Charley in August 2004 has long since fallen to pieces, scattering blue, shredded plastic through the neighborhood. Rusted paint cans that once held the tarp in place sit on the roof.

And then there are the rats, said next-door neighbor Sharon Lilley, an Orwin Manor Homeowners Association board member.They're big, ugly and live in the weeds.

"They're not exactly the kind of pets you'd like to have around," Lilley said.

Beary said that reporters are covering the property problems because they are trying to work against him. He added that the house is his wife Rebekah's project and referred a reporter to her for most questions.

Rebekah Beary denied that there were rats at the residence, and said they were unaware of all but one of the code-enforcement violation notices. Neighbors have not complained to them, she said. At their highest, the weeds were 8 inches tall, she said.

"It's only an issue to certain people there," she said.

Winter Park will bill Beary a $100 administrative fee for the lawn service plus the cost of labor, said Sylvia Wooten, the city's chief code-enforcement officer. If he doesn't pay, a lien will be placed on his property, which is department policy.

"Basically, we try to treat people the same way," Wooten said.

The problem started in 2004, when a tree fell on the one-story house during Hurricane Charley, Lilley said. Tenants moved out, and the Pelham Road house remained in disrepair, she said.

Rebekah Beary said that the insurance company wouldn't pay for all the hurricane damage, and they have disputed the matter for more than a year.

Rebekah Beary said she had the lawn mowed once a month, but frustrated residents in the neighborhood of about 300 homes prompted code-enforcement officials to notify Beary that his house had too much overgrowth and damage, Wooten said.

City officials notified Beary repeatedly about the violations, but the property remained in poor condition, Wooten said.

When a tarp disappeared from the roof of the house, a code-enforcement official thought it was fixed, Wooten said.

In fact, Lilley said, the tarp disintegrated after almost two years in the sun and rain. Blue plastic flecks littered the block. The paint cans that held it down rusted.

"It's not a very pretty view from the bedroom," Lilley said.

She's afraid the paint cans will blow off during the next Charley-like storm -- perhaps into her house.

Rebekah Beary said she went to the house this week and it was not in bad shape.

Wooten said a code-enforcement officer will reinspect the house today.

Wooten said her office was unaware until Thursday that Beary owns the property. His property-ownership records are confidential because he is a law-enforcement officer.

The city sent code-violation notices to the Property Appraiser's Office, which has the responsibility to forward them to Beary. There is no indication he failed to receive them, she said.

Beary said he never received the notices sent by mail. He called the Property Appraiser's Office on Thursday to tell them to make sure communications reach him, he said.

Code-enforcement workers will keep his case open until they're satisfied the house will remain in good shape, Wooten said.

"We're going to keep an eye on it," she said.

Rebekah Beary said she hopes to raze the current house and build a new one within the year.

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Kevin Beary Has Three Paying Jobs Besides Being Sheriff


08/05/2005 - ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Eyewitness News has learned that Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary has three other paying jobs besides being sheriff. Some Orange County commissioners are concerned that's too many.

Orange County taxpayers pay Sheriff Beary $140,000 a year. He also gets an additional $25,000 in retirement and a vehicle. With the outside work, he managed to earn an additional $73,000 last year in his off time.

When Sheriff Beary wasn't keeping people off the streets after last summer's hurricanes, or briefing reporters on an arrest, he was busy and not just doing taxpayer's business.

Beary said he spends eight hours a week at Florida Metropolitan University off John Young Parkway where he teaches classes on criminal justice. For that, he earned $18,343 dollars, according to his state financial disclosure.

Then there's Beary's consulting work for a company based out of a building in Pittsburgh. ChemImage has developed technology to detect "threats agents" in the air and water. The president didn't return Channel 9's calls, but Beary's financial records indicate he made $12,500 last year from ChemImage.

Finally, there is the non-profit company that produced a homeland security manual. Beary started the National Domestic Preparedness Coalition with the help of taxpayers. Months after telling Channel 9 he wouldn't earn any money from the venture, and just weeks after winning re-election, records show he earned $43,000. Beary said it was for 348 hours of consulting over two and a half years. That works out to 43.5 eight-hour workdays. He said it was all off-duty.

Commissioner Bob Sindler was surprised to see the income for someone already making so much. Commissioner Bill Segal asked the legal department to give him a definition of exactly what constitutes a full time job.

Sheriff Beary also has unpaid work outside of the sheriff's office. This year he became the president of the Florida Sheriff's Association and the president of the Florida Domestic Security Task Force.

Beary wouldn't agree to an interview, but he said in a statement that he works more than 40 hours a week and he'd compare his schedule with any other elected official in Orange County.

Meanwhile, the Orange County comptroller's office said Monday that they're making progress in their inquiry into the sheriff's non-profit homeland security company. The audit started after a Channel 9 investigation in April. For months, the comptroller had been waiting for a copy of a contract between the non-profit and the Department of Homeland Security. Late last week, an attorney for the feds said they found the contract and would mail it very soon.

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Audit questions Sheriff Beary's accounting of homeland security work

04/21/2006 - Orange County released its audit this afternoon of how Sheriff Kevin Beary's agency used public money to start a nonprofit that later paid Beary a consulting fee. The 37-page audit says the Orange County Sheriff's Office "did not maintain appropriate documentation to support labor, travel, facilities, equipment, and ancillary services costs incurred in direct support" of the nonprofit National Domestic Preparedness Coalition. The report notes that auditors were unable to determine the total amount of time and money that the Sheriff's Office spent on starting the coalition. The sheriff's office and NDPCI's "prevasive focus on the performance goal of creating and demonstrating a vulnerability assessment methodology overshadowed normal accountability and procedures," the report from the Orange County Comptroller. (We'll be seeking the sheriff's comment but don't have it yet. The sheriff's office comments are included in the audit, however.)

The audit is a "limited review." In its executive summary, auditors note that they did not evaluate whether the sheriff's "arrangement with NDPCI was legal" or in compliance with state ethics statutes, or whether it was "in the best interests of Orange County taxpayers."

"In addition," the report says, "we did not determine if the relationship between OCSO and NDPCI provides NDPCI an unfair business advantage over other private companies providing like security assessments and consulting."

The audit was announced in July 2005, a month after it was disclosed that Beary had received $43,000 for work he did for the NDPCI -- money Beary later returned, although he said all the work was done on his own time. The question the auditors examined was whether any county money was used improperly to start NDPCI, which developed an assessment tool that law enforcement agencies and others used to determine how vulnerable public buildings were to terrorist attacks

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Sheriff Beary broke privacy laws

04.05.2005 - ORLANDO, Fla. -- Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary is apologizing Wednesday to a woman in Winter Park.

Alice Gawronski wrote a letter to the editor of the Orlando Sentinel criticizing Beary and his department's use of Taser guns, WESH NewsChannel 2 reported.

That's when the outspoken and sometimes controversial sheriff found out where Gawronski lives, and he fired back a letter directly to her. Beary volunteered to be shocked by a Taser gun last summer to prove they're safe. It was his appearance at that news conference that was attacked in a letter to the Sentinel.

Gawronski, of Winter Park, wrote, "There was something else Beary established during the press conference; that he would be too overweight and out of shape ever to apprehend a suspect already in handcuffs. Could this be a problem with all his officers?"

Beary was so upset by the letter that he had his staff look up Gawronski's address using driver's license records and fired off a letter to her.

"I recently read your slanderous remarks about the Orange County Sheriff's Office in the Orlando Sentinel. It is unfortunate that people ridicule others without arming themselves with the facts before they slander a law enforcement agency or individual," Beary wrote.

Gawronski, who declined to go on camera, said she was very surprised to get the sheriff's letter. She considers it a form of intimidation and questions if the sheriff broke privacy laws when he used the driver's license database to get her address.

In a letter sent to Gawronski Wednesday, Beary appeared to try to smooth things over, but still defended his actions.

"I never in any way sent that letter to you with the intent of intimidating you. Please know that I am confident I was within the purview of the Florida Public Records Law when I obtained your mailing address. I sincerely regret the fact that my letter upset you," Beary wrote.

In his apology letter, Sheriff Beary also said he wrote the letter to set the record straight on a matter of public concern, and that his passion and desire to do so evolved into a misunderstanding. WESH NewsChannel 2 attempted to reach Beary Wednesday night but was told he was not commenting on the issue.