FLORIDA:Windermere scandal: Current cop rode with Warlocks biker club, records show

OFF THE WIRE
A different officer – the town's former No. 2 cop, Lt. Paul Conway — said Saylor voided traffic tickets and watched porn on city computers.
Hundreds of records outlining the growing case against former Windermere Police Chief Daniel Saylor were released this morning by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office.
The records document that Saylor personally recommended hiring an officer who rode with the Warlocks motorcycle club, a group that that has been linked to criminal activity in the past.
Officer Gregory Beasley has a tattoo of the Warlocks crest on his left arm and acknowledged he had been an associate member of the "Warlocks motorcycle gxxg" when he applied to work as a drug informant for the Seminole County City-County Investigative Bureau in the mid-1990s, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records in the released documents.
Beasley remains a Windermere police officer.
A different officer – the town's former No. 2 cop, Lt. Paul Conway — said he would not have hired Beasley if he had known about his past.
Conway also said Saylor routinely voided traffic tickets for town residents and that Saylor viewed pornography on city computers.
Upon being told about some of the reports' accusations, Mayor Gary Bruhn declined to comment until he reviewed the 500-plus pages of records. "I need to look at those reports," he said.
The release of 802 pages of documents did not include audio files of secretly recorded conversations between Saylor and Irvin Murr, a Windermere police officer who accused his former boss of bribing him to mislead a state investigation of police corruption in Windermere. That evidence is expected to be released at a later date.
About 1,500 pages of documents are expected to be released by next week as part of the pretrial discovery period, when prosecutors and defense lawyers disclose all of the information they intend to use at trial.
Those records include interviews with current and former Windermere police officers questioned by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement about corruption within the 24-member force, including allegations of theft, favoritism and shutting down two child-rape investigations.
Inves tigators and prosecutors say almost every interview prompted spinoff inquiries into misconduct after Saylor took command in 2002 of the once-respected, small-town police department.
Those accusations included ticket fixing, stealing evidence and filing false crime statistics. The outcome of those inquiries remains unknown.
Saylor's career ended with his highly publicized Jan. 12 arrest on charges related to shutting down a child-rape investigation of Windermere resident Scott Bush, 50. Saylor's friend was arrested the same day on charges of sexual battery on a child younger than 12 years old.
Court records state Saylor twice shut down rape investigations against Bush in 2003 and 2009. Bush is charged in the 2009 case and it is unknown if other charges are pending over the 2003 case.
The interviews released today do not provide any insight into Saylor's friendship with Bush.
That remains a mystery, according to Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar, who said after Saylor's arrest that investigators could not understand why the police chief betrayed his oath and risked prison to help Bush.
One of Bush's neighbors, Edward Williams, told FDLE that off-duty Windermere cops regularly hung out at Bush's lakefront home using boats and jet skis. Williams also said Bush hired routinely hired Mexican and South America craftsmen to work on his home, then refused to pay them and called Windermere police to run off the angry craftsmen, records state.
"The WPD would show up and inform the workers to either leave the residence or they would arrest the contractors or have them deported," records state. "At least a dozen times that Mr. Williams personally observed Bush would call the WPD to have them leave when the work was nearly completed."
A former friend of Saylor, Jon Hodgskin, gave FDLE a similar account about Bush hiring, then refusing to pay contractors and calling Windermere police for help. Hodgskin ended his friendship after deciding the chief was "dirty," the report stated.
Hodgskin told FDLE that he had bought a Glock pistol for $400 from Saylor about two years ago when Saylor called saying he needed cash. Saylor apparently obtained the gun through a law enforcement discount program, Hodgskin said. He also believed that Saylor sold a similar weapon to Bush and advised FDLE that an audit might show ammunition missing from the police department.
Since Saylor's arrest and subsequent dismissal, five Windermere officers resigned or were fired. A sixth officer is expected to resign within days and more terminations are expected, according to interviews.
Saylor's replacement, former Orlando Police Chief Mike McCoy, has promised to clean up the agency.
Asked Friday morning about FDLE's disclosure of Beasley's Warlocks association, McCoy declined to say what action he may take against the former biker. McCoy said he has been waiting for FDLE to finish its criminal investigation before taking administrative action against department members.
"They certainly need to be looked at from an administrative standpoint," said McCoy,
As part of the shake-up, every Windermere officer faces new criminal and personal background checks designed to ferret out previously undisclosed personal or criminal misbehavior. The background checks will be done by Orange County sheriff's detectives rather than by a part-time officer Saylor used in the past.
In Beasley's case, the background check conducted by Windermere Lt. John Hein did not mention anything about the Warlocks and failed to report Beasley's 1990 felony arrests for marijuana production and possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana. Those arrests were found by Seminole County investigators in 1995, when Beasley applied to work as a drug informant, records state.
Polk County records show Beasley was arrested in Lakeland in 1994 on a grand theft charge.
Saylor's former girlfriend, Patrice Murphy, was named as personal reference for Beasley when he applied to become a Windermere cop in 2009. Saylor signed off on the application as the person who referred Beasley to Windermere police.
A former electrician, Beasley worked from 2002 to 2004 as an Oak Hill police officer in Volusia County. Former Oak Hill police Chief Gus Beckstrom wrote in an emal last month that Beasley " was one of my best officers. I had no problem with him."
Windermere police did not attract scrutiny until last year when the Orlando Sentinel reported the town with 2,600 residents —Central Florida's wealthiest city —hired officers no other agency would employ.
Public records showed Saylor and nearly half of Windermere's 24 officers had been fired or allowed to resign from other agencies while under investigation for a range of misconduct including dishonesty, domestic violence and drug abuse.
Saylor resigned from the Melbourne Police Department in the 1990s after being accused of picking up a prostitute in Orlando following a night of drinking at adult entertainment clubs on South Orange Blossom Trail.
Town officials disregarded the information about the police force, including Town Manager Cecilia Bernier, who said she knew all about Saylor and the history and records of his officers.
"They are the best officers for this town, and I stand by the police department and the officers because they are the best department in Orange County," she said last year.
Since then, Saylor was arrested and fired and Bernier offered to resign — an offer the Town Council accepted.
The manager's resignation letter came after Town Mayor Gary Bruhn was knocked unconscious at last week's Town Coucil meeting after a confrontation with Bernier's husband, Roland Bernier. Bruhn had just finished a half-hour speech criticizing Cecilia Bernier's supervision of the Police Department and blaming her for the scandal.
Windermere police submitted witness statements to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office this week for possible prosecution of Roland Bernier on misdemeanor battery charges.
Saylor remains free on bail. He is charged with official misconduct, giving unlawful compensation for official behavior, bribery of a public servant, official misconduct, solicitation to commit official misconduct and solicitation to tamper with evidence, all felonies.
Bush remains free on bail, charged with capital sexual battery of a person under 12 and sexual touching of a person under 12 years of age.
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