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Here’s What FDLE Uncovered About Eavesdropping Device Found In Escambia County Administrator’s Office
January 23, 2021
We are learning more about an eavesdropping device — an illegal hidden camera — found in the office of Escambia County Administrator Janice Gilley last year.
Gilley said she requested that her office be swept for a bugs after details of a private conversation were leaked to the public. The device, which had both audio and video capabilities, was found after a confidential informant contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement “requesting assistance with a possible insider threat case at a county office,” according to a FDLE investigative report.
On August 7, a FDLE special agent and a K-9 performed a search, finding a Vivitar Versa Magnetic Camera inside a fake plant in a conference room. The camera was turned on and appeared to be recording when it was located, according to the FDLE.
The camera’s SD card was empty.
According to the report, the camera is sold at Walmart stores, “appearing to be exclusively online” and connects wirelessly to a phone or device when it is recording.
FDLE placed the camera back in the fake plant in an attempt to capture someone retrieving the camera.
Agents then conducted an in-depth electronic sweep, and no other suspicious devices were located. FDLE searched the building again for suspicious devices on September 15 and found nothing.
The State Attorney’s Office subpoenaed Walmart records and found that three of the cameras were sold online in Florida between February 1, 2020, and August 1, 2020.
“Analytical research was completed on the subpoena results and no customer was linked to the undisclosed business or any of their employees,” the FDLE report stated.
Comments
8 Responses to “Here’s What FDLE Uncovered About Eavesdropping Device Found In Escambia County Administrator’s Office”
DO needs to read some law. Want to follow public employees to the restroom too? They public employees in a public building. What are they hiding?
REGARDING:
“Private conversations by county employees in county offices on county time. Sounds like public information to me.”
Not unless with other officials.
286.011 Public meetings and records; public inspection; criminal and civil penalties.—
(1) All meetings of any board or commission of any state agency or authority or of any agency or authority of any county, municipal corporation, or political subdivision, except as otherwise provided in the Constitution, including meetings with or attended by any person elected to such board or commission, but who has not yet taken office, at which official acts are to be taken are declared to be public meetings open to the public at all times, and no resolution, rule, or formal action shall be considered binding except as taken or made at such meeting. The board or commission must provide reasonable notice of all such meetings.
(2) The minutes of a meeting of any such board or commission of any such state agency or authority shall be promptly recorded, and such records shall be open to public inspection. The circuit courts of this state shall have jurisdiction to issue injunctions to enforce the purposes of this section upon application by any citizen of this state.
D. O. needs to read the Sunshine Law.
When they first found the device, County Administration probably set out to find who done it. Now, it’s seemingly dropped, so they probably found who did it and handled it internally. You know, like “you’re fired”.
Private conversations by county employees in county offices on county time. Sounds like public information to me. Or are our administrators keeping secrets from the public? Did you publish the leaked information? Can we see that again? Sounds like it might be relevant.
So, after all the investigating and whathaveyou the result is that Nobody knows Anything?
Seems first clue would be “The camera’s SD card was empty.”
No fingerprints or contact DNA found?
Need to call in NCIS and let Gibbs’ team solve this.
Oversight, lots of RICH folks in Orange Beach etc SCAM in Florida using the PO mail services right out there in Perdido THEN slip back across state lines….
FDLE, since Escambia County borders Alabama, why didn’t you check to see if any of the devices were ordered and shipped there too? Amateurs.