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FDLE chief's son felt the pressure of investigation

As his father led an investigation into his bosses' activities, Brad Tunnell was increasingly ostracized.

By LUCY MORGAN
Published March 22, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - Living alone on an old hog farm in rural North Florida, Brad Tunnell was scared. So, for comfort, he put "a gun in every corner" and his trust in Bowden, a black Lab with ears to hear a pin drop.

"They had me totally off by myself," Tunnell told the St. Petersburg Times last week. "I was scared. I wouldn't put anything past them."

Making Tunnell so jumpy were the people he worked for - top officials at the Florida Department of Corrections. But his trouble arose out of his other identity.

Brad Tunnell, 31, is the son of Guy Tunnell, the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the agency that is leading a broad, criminal investigation of some of the younger Tunnell's bosses at the Corrections Department.

Recently, he had noticed, some corrections officers quit speaking to him, and others made disparaging comments about the FDLE and his father.

The relationships weren't always so strained. Brad Tunnell was hired as a corrections services consultant in early 2004 after his father and then-Corrections Secretary James V. Crosby had a conversation at a social gathering. It's the kind of thing that happens all the time in Tallahassee - family members of high-ranking state officials often find jobs at other agencies.

But few would have predicted then that his new job would land him in the middle of state and federal grand jury investigations into steroid trafficking, misappropriation of money and equipment and fisticuffs among the men and women charged with guarding the more than 86,000 inmates in Florida prisons.

At first, Brad Tunnell worked at corrections headquarters in Tallahassee, but in March 2005, as the FDLE's investigation began to gain attention, he was transferred to Apalachee Correctional Institution, a prison in rural Jackson County about 50 miles east of Tallahassee. There he reported to Allen C. Clark, a regional supervisor who had become the principal target of the FDLE investigation.

Like many other prison employees who work at institutions that are isolated from major cities, Tunnell was assigned to live in a state-owned house, but this one - the hog farm - was miles from the prison.

Once, when Tunnell declined an invitation to a prison party, he was confronted by Clark and asked if he had told his father that prison officials at Apalachee don't like him or talk to him. Tunnell said no.

"Clark said, "Well, I just want to make sure you didn't tell your dad that we don't like you around here,"' Tunnell recalled in a sworn statement made to FDLE investigators in October 2005.

Tunnell said Clark and others urged him to take the job in Jackson County. But, he said, "as soon as I went over there, I didn't have a friend in Jackson County, I mean nobody."

On Aug. 22, Brad Tunnell and a fellow corrections officer were asked to meet Crosby and another officer at Clyde's, a popular bar near the state Capitol.

State investigators say Crosby threatened retaliation against Brad Tunnell if he didn't do something to get his father to halt the investigation of Clark and other prison officials.

Tunnell said Crosby threatened to open an internal investigation into a May 14, 2005, Jacksonville brawl among corrections officers who play softball. The incident occurred in a motel parking lot but was never investigated by Jacksonville police or prison authorities until Nov. 9, a day after Crosby was questioned about the alleged threat at Clyde's.

Crosby has denied making the threat or retaliating against Brad Tunnell. He told investigators he was merely trying to take the young officer "under my wing" and caution him to be "real careful" because of his father's position.

Last month, internal investigators at the Corrections Department found Brad Tunnell and three other officers guilty of improper conduct in the Jacksonville incident. Brad Tunnell resigned. The other officers have been suspended or demoted.

Tunnell said Crosby offered him a promotion to a major's job at another prison about a week after the meeting at Clyde's. At first, Tunnell said he would take the job, but after thinking about it, he rejected the offer.

"I thought to myself, here he is offering me a promotion when he was threatening me a week ago," Tunnell said.

Then the younger Tunnell met with his father and decribed the two encounters with Crosby. The elder Tunnell referred him to the agents investigating Crosby and other corrections officers.

Clark resigned from the agency in August, and Crosby resigned last month at the request of Gov. Jeb Bush. Several other officers close to Crosby have been fired as newly appointed Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough attempts to clean house in a deeply troubled agency.

Brad Tunnell said he is not sure what he'll do in the future, but expects to seek employment outside of law enforcement.

"My parents are really worried about me, but I'm worried about them. My father is at the height of his career," Tunnell said.

Guy Tunnell, 65, is a respected former police chief and sheriff who has spent his entire career in law enforcement.

The younger Tunnell said he is glad to be out of a situation where everyone is fearful of retaliation by Crosby and his cronies.

"If you didn't kiss up to them, you had to be worried about being moved to South Florida," Tunnell told the Times.

Tunnell said he saw a lot of things going on that shouldn't be happening in a law enforcement agency.

"There was a lot of drinking and heavy partying," he said. "There are no rules in the department about drinking unless one says drink until you fall out."

There are some good people in the system, he said, but many fear retaliation if they report wrongdoing.

[Last modified March 28, 2006, 15:04:35]