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Sheriff didn't like criticism, so he wrote a note

Looking up the critic's Orange County address might have been a crime.

ORLANDO - Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary might have broken a federal law when he used driver's license records to track down a woman who wrote a newspaper to criticize his officers' use of Taser stun guns and described him as too fat for basic police work.

Beary had his aides get the address of Alice Gawronski from the records so he could send her a letter. It is illegal to access a driver's license database to obtain personal information, except for clear law enforcement purposes, under the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

"I recently read your slanderous remarks about the Orange County Sheriff's Office in the Orlando Sentinel," Beary wrote Gawronski on March 23. "It is unfortunate that people ridicule others without arming themselves with the facts before they slander a law enforcement agency or individual."

Gawronski said, "I thought I was exercising my First Amendment right of free speech, expressing an opinion in an open forum about a paid public official." She said she regarded Beary's letter as intimidation.

Violators of the driver's privacy act can be sued in federal court for damages, attorney fees and any other relief the court deems appropriate.

Sheriff's officials said it was legal to look up Gawronski's address in the database of drivers. Spokesman Jim Solomons said responding to a resident's concern is well within Beary's official duties.

Gawronski's letter appeared in the Sentinel on March 10. The Winter Park mother of four said her concerns about Tasers peaked when an Orlando police officer zapped a suspect handcuffed to a hospital bed to obtain a urine specimen.

In her letter, she referred to a televised news conference last June when Beary allowed himself to be zapped with a Taser to demonstrate their safety. Seeing Beary incapacitated by 50,000 volts and "in an obvious state of duress" convinced her the stun guns should not be used, she wrote.

Gawronski also wrote that if deputies were more fit, they might not need to resort to zapping suspects.

Beary said he was a victim of slander.

"During my Taser incident, I was never under any duress," he wrote Gawronski.

Before the test, the 5-foot-10 Beary estimated his weight at 290 pounds.

[Last modified April 7, 2005, 01:22:13]