Yesterday, Florida You Judge (“FYJ”) emailed the below communication to Jane Castor. Should Jane Castor care to respond to readers/voters, this blog will supplement the post with her reaction.

You retired as chief of Tampa police in 2015. You then began a consulting firm, Castor Consulting. Between the years 2010-11, the Miami Police Depart killed 7 black men within a period of 8 months. The New York Times published an article about it, Race Issues Rise for Miami Police. As a result of the death of these 7 black men, the Miami Police Department entered into a policing agreement with the DOJ on Feb 25, 2016allowing the FEDS to police them to ensure no more black men unnecessarily die. You were chosen by the city of Miami to monitor this agreement at 125K (not to exceed) a year ($150 an hour) of taxpayer money. You signed your monitoring contract on April 7, 2016 and the same was notarized on April 28, 2016. This contract you signed obligated you to submit quarterly reports, so at the time you signed the contract in April you were supposed to thereafter submit reports for Julyand November of 2016. The Miami Herald made a public records request for these reports and it learned that you had not submitted them and in a December 2016 article it headlined the story, “Former Tampa chief Jane Castor ‘behind schedule’ as monitor of Miami’s federal policing pact” The article stated:

“Nine months after the city and federal government came to terms on the hard-fought compact, the consultant hired to look over the department’s shoulder is way behind schedule. Though her first public report was to be issued July 10, and her second in November, Castor has yet to publish a review stating her opinion of the department’s progress.”

The article referenced the excuse given for the reports not having been completed, ” She wasn’t officially under contract until this week — a fact the city of Miami acknowledged Thursday, two months after the Miami Herald requested the document.” The article was published in December two months after it had requested your initial July report. Therefore, the excuse given by you and the city of Miami, which you were supposed to be monitoring to make sure no more black men died unnecessarily, is you weren’t actually under contract until December not April 7, 2016, the date on the only contract you signed and had notarized on 4/28/2016.

I thereafter made a public records request for a copy of the contract and noticed that someone drew a line through the month of April and hand wrote December over it, a notarized document, notarized April 28, 2016. Neither you nor the city attorney know who drew the line. You may want to call the Florida Association of Notaries, I did. I was told that modifying a notarized document without the parties either initializing/signing next to the change is a no no. The other option could have been executing a brand new agreement.

* as a sidenote, I drove down to Miami to hear your explanation to a Miami Civilian Board (it was recorded see link to my blog post, video embedded) as to when your late reports would be done and a county commissioner, Francis Suarez, was present at the meeting. I approached him and asked him if he had voted to hire you as the city’s monitor and whether he knew about the black on bike Tampa Bay Times report in 2015 that you now acknowledge was wrong….Francis Suarez told me that he had voted for you but that he did not know about the Tampa issue prior to his vote and that I could quote him on that. I blogged about this. See my blog post here. I could not understand how you were selected to monitor another police agency with issues related to deaths of civilian black men so close in time to issues you yourself had as the former chief of police in Tampa, burdening blacks without a benefit.

I texted you on May 5, 2017 (a Sunday) and wrote, “Jane-good evening- I am publishing a blog post regarding an issue related to your monitoring agreement and wanted to give you an opportunity to comment before I publish-why is there a line strike through april 7th (the seeming initial start date of your written agreement) and december written above it when that document was notarized on 4/28/2016? Seems odd especially on the heels of David Smiley’s article late last year alleging you were behind schedule on your initial report. Thanks and have a good Sunday and week.” See attached text message below Interestingly, the day of the month did not change, the 7th. What are the odds that the new start day of December is the same start day of April?

Within minutes you called me and advised that you did not know who drew the line through April and when I asked you whether your copy of the contract had the line you could not respond and said you had to look for your copy. You also advised I needed to speak with Miami’s city attorney, George Wysong, and inquire about why the start date of the contract changed to December because it had something to do with an insurance issue. I asked you if you had billed prior to December and you responded that you had and I was perplexed that you were billing for work prior to the “start” date of December even though you were giving that as an excuse for your work (reports) under the contract not being complete. I called the city attorney, George Wysong, the next day and he advised that the contract was pushed to December because the city had to make sure you were adequately insured. I then asked him how could you have been allowed to work prior to December when the insurance matter had not been resolved prior to December and it could have subjected the city of Miami to potential liability? Mr. Wysong did not have an adequate response for that neither did he know who drew the line through the month of April but that it was someone in Miami that did it. Did you give consent to anyone to tweak your signed and notarized contract?

* Please see below pdf attachments of (the referenced emails to you and Wysong and his response to me) regarding this issue. FYJ reader, all attachments are below.

Mr. Wysong,

See below. Your response to my inquiry in 2017. Please see attached the 2016 monitoring agreement. You indicated that the start date in the contract was pushed to December because Risk Mgt had to clear Castor for adequate insurance requirements. However, the contract Castor signed on 4/7/2016 and had notarized 4/28/2016 ALREADY had the city’s Risk Mgt Director’s, Ann- Marie Sharpe, signature to the contract (please see page 14 of the contract) as Ms. Castor being “APPROVED AS TO INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS” , please explain this SIR….

I am posting a blog piece today and publishing this email as part of the post. I will include any response you may have.

Oh by the way, this past April (2018), Ms. Castor made an admission of wrongdoing when the Tampa Police Department burdened black men without a benefit under Castor’s leadership. It was not too long after the unfortunate burdening of blacks scandal that the Tampa Bay Times wrote about in 2015, that the city of Miami hired Castor to oversee a policing agreement between the Feds and the Miami police after 7 black men were killed within the period of 8 months by Miami police. Castor made this admission a week before she announced that she was running for mayor of the city of Tampa and presumably to win the vote of the community that her agency burdened. Did you or any of the officials who made the decision to hire her in 2016 know this? Do you think that the residents of the city of Miami can have complete confidence in Castor as the chosen monitor with this in her background and when she did not have her reports completed by the due date under the attached contract that taxpayers were paying her $150.00 an hour/125k a year max? The Miami Herald in December of 2016 ran an article saying Castor was “way behind schedule” on her work under the agreement. How has Castor been doing on monitoring your agreement with the FEDS that began on 2016 and runs until 2020 seeing as Castor is currently spending her time and focused on campaigning to be mayor of Tampa? Inquiring minds want to know.

Tomorrow, a well respected Tampa Bay civil rights attorney, Michael Maddux, has been invited to Michelle Willliams’ radio show, Stay Woke. Michelle Williams is a local community activist. Maddux will be on for the full two hour show, 8am-10am. You can listen to it on http://www.n-touchnews.com/. You can hear the show by hitting the play button on the website page screen or you can also visit Ms. Williams’ facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/thetruthslanger, as she will also be livestreaming it to her over 21K followers. Ms. Jane Castor is also invited on the show to discuss the wrong done to blacks under her leadership and to hopefully address how she will now make the community that was burdened whole.