Holt may face second inquiry

Hillsborough public defender Julianne Holt is again under scrutiny as authorities receive ethics complaints about her.

By GRAHAM BRINK and AMY HERDY

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 25, 2000

TAMPA -- Four years ago, Hillsborough County Public Defender Julianne Holt told an ethics investigator that she knew she wasn't allowed to have her staff tend to her personal affairs like picking up her dry cleaning or having them babysit.

"I expect a lot of people in the office to do a lot of things that benefit me," Holt said in the sworn statement. "But that's in terms of being public defender, within their job responsibilities.

Yet former employees now say they spent hundreds of state hours on tasks that had little to do with their professional duties and everything to do with Holt's personal life.

The allegations, outlined in a St. Petersburg Times article last week, once again have Holt facing the prospect of an investigation into whether she used public resources for personal or political gain.

On Thursday, State Attorney Harry Lee Coe contacted state law enforcement and the governor's office about his options. Coe will likely have to step aside since his attorneys work with their counterparts at the public defender's office every day.

"Coe sent us a complaint to review on Julianne Holt regarding some misconduct allegations," said Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Jennifer McCord. "We review the allegations to determine if we would take it a step further to open an investigation."

Holt, 45, said she doesn't think she has done anything wrong and has attacked the credibility of her accusers, calling them disgruntled former employees who are willing to lie to ruin her bid for a third four-year term as public defender. Holt, who makes $125,375 a year, was elected public defender in 1992 and oversees an office of more than 150 employees including about 65 lawyers.

In an e-mail distributed officewide Thursday, an assistant public defender told his colleagues that he had witnessed similar personal attacks against Holt "by this extremely biased newspaper." The memo stated that Holt and the office would survive and that the former employees should be ashamed of themselves.

"One of (Holt's) objectives was to remove the office from the dark and bring it in the light of public scrutiny," read the e-mail, which was later leaked to the Times. "It is unfortunate that her openness is now being used against her."

Holt, a Democrat, faces Republican challenger Alan Sandler in the Nov. 7 election. Sandler has remained publicly quiet about the recent allegations, although his Web site has featured several postings from browsers criticizing Holt. Some of the former employees' accusations center on doing campaign work on state time for Holt during the current and previous campaigns. The secretaries typed dozens of letters to Holt's supporters, records show. One former employee, process server Joe Moore, said he was pulled off work to help set up a golf tournament. One document, kept on a computer in Holt's office, tracked the location of Holt's campaign yard signs.

Mike Wilkes, a former Pasco County Sheriff's Office lieutenant and captain with the Dade City Police Department, spent two months with the public defender's office as an investigator earlier this year. When Wilkes first arrived, he said he was told that he worked for Holt and that part of his job was to make sure that she remained in office.

Wilkes, 48, said he understood that he and the other employees like Joe Moore were expected to perform campaign work on state time. Wilkes said he too was asked to help organize a golf tournament for Holt, including gathering business sponsors. He also witnessed a supervisor pull Moore in from serving subpoenas and tell him, "You need to get . . . out there and collect some money (for the campaign)."

Wilkes steered clear of the campaign work, as he knew from his past experiences working for elected sheriffs that such requests were potential violations of campaign rules. Wilkes said he holds no grudge against Holt or the office and retired only after doctors confirmed he should not work due to his coronary artery disease.

"Personally, I had no problems there," Wilkes said. "But I know Joe Moore was not lying." Holt said some of her employees assisted with her campaign work, but it was always on their own time. She said she never authorized any campaign work on state time.

"The rules around here are simple," she said. "Take time off if you are going to do anything (not work related)."

Many of the other allegations stem from several former secretaries and employees who said Holt had them attending to her personal affairs, including depositing her checks, taking her car in for service, working on her house and making hair and doctor's appointments for Holt and her mother.

Learning how to babysit Holt's 1-year-old daughter was part of the job training, said Wanda Moore, Holt's secretary from August 1998 to October 1999.

While she was training to be Holt's secretary, Wanda Moore said, another staffer asked her to try to feed Holt's daughter some blueberries with her lunch.

"She wouldn't take the food from me," Moore said. "I felt like I had failed, like it was a typing test I failed."

Holt said that on a few occasions her secretaries and other people in the office volunteered to look after her children. Holt said she encouraged other employees to bring their children to the office as the need arose, rather than miss work.

The former employees said performing Holt's personal tasks was expected, not something they volunteered to do. Sharon Slater, Holt's secretary from 1993 to 1997, kept copious records of the work she performed, including memos and computer disks that show the work was done during regular business hours.

Slater and another former secretary, Melissa Dearing, say they spent dozens of hours of state time filling out Holt's 26-page application to practice law in Texas and helping to type lesson plans and grade and administer tests for government and criminology classes Holt taught at several local colleges.

Holt confirmed that her secretaries assisted with the schoolwork and bar application. She said teaching criminal justice classes and joining bar associations enhance the image of the Public Defender's Office and benefit the community as a whole.

Holt had a similar response when asked about having two employees hand-deliver her application for a judgeship to Lakeland on state time.

"It would lend prestige to the office that someone from this office became . . . (an appeal's court) judge," she said. "That enhances reputations of offices."

The teaching income, however, did not always show up on Holt's annual financial disclosures. Records show that Holt earned at least $7,500 teaching at the University of South Florida in 1997 and 1998, none of which she declared.

Holt also acknowledged in an interview last week that she worked at the University of Tampa. None of the income shows up on the disclosures, which are an annual requirement for elected officials. Holt remembers declaring the income on her tax return but did not have an explanation for the omission on the disclosure forms.

Failure to make required disclosures can be punished by anything from a reprimand to removal and a fine not to exceed $10,000, according to Florida statutes.

In 1996, Holt faced both an ethics investigation and a grand jury inquiry. Gov. Lawton Chiles assigned an independent prosecutor to look into allegations that Holt's office represented wealthy clients at taxpayer's expense and that state resources were used for personal business.

The grand jury did not find any criminal wrongdoing, but chastised Holt for unwisely spending tax dollars and engaging in activities unbecoming a public official. The jurors questioned Holt's judgment and integrity and called the behavior disturbing.

Records recently obtained by the Times show that Holt used office staff and resources to prepare her defense during the months-long investigation by the Florida Commission on Ethics. In several memos and letters sent to her attorney, Scott Tozian, Holt outlined strategies and verified witness accounts, all on state time.

In one such letter, dated Aug. 17, 1995, Holt informed Tozian she had scheduled five witnesses called upon by the commission to appear in her office on Aug. 23 for interviews.

Staff members also spent hundreds of hours transcribing interviews of key witnesses by investigators, as well as time organizing the various files, said Slater, who was Holt's secretary from 1993 to 1997.

"Every time someone was interviewed and there was a tape, it was transcribed in the office," Slater recalled. "(Then) we organized it and indexed it."

It is not clear whether using office resources to contest an investigation violates the commission's rules, said Peter Ostreich, an attorney for the commission.

"The commission hasn't made that determination," Ostreich said. "We haven't faced that issue (before)."

- Graham Brink and Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3366 or tampa@sptimes.com.

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