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This is the fifth installment of a seven-part investigative series into Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, a man who built his career on lies, violence, and manipulation. The series charts Tony’s misdeeds from the streets of Philadelphia to the most powerful political office in South Florida.

“Broward County voters will see through these disgraceful political tactics,” – Sheriff Tony’s campaign team.

Greg Tony has shown he possesses neither the virtue, the objective decision-making, nor the temperament to be sheriff. Our leaders are supposed to be people we look up to, individuals with unshakable moral courage. Unfortunately, this is not Greg Tony.

We’ve covered the lies and deceit that led to his appointment as sheriff, as well as the potential bid-rigging and cronyism that drew the eyes of federal authorities. Choices in Tony’s personal life also raise questions about his judgment and discretion.

Shortly following the revelation that Tony killed Hector Rodriguez, photographs were obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel capturing the sheriff and his wife at “erotic themed events.” These weren’t, in his gym buddy Andrew Pollack’s assessment, “Halloween parties,” they were organized swinger events complete with “pool parties, strip and swing club invasions and group invasions and group vacations.”

Why should it matter? This isn’t an argument about personal freedom; it’s about good sense and the mental fitness of a person deemed worthy to lead law enforcement. This is the same individual who was called ‘despicable’ by a member of the Florida Commission on Ethics.

The investigations. The lies. The self-adulation at the public’s expense and safety. This is not an abstract assessment: it is a culmination of questionable choices directly impacting Tony’s effective role as sheriff. The badge demands more. The public deserves better.

The pattern of poor judgment that characterized Tony’s personal life would also manifest in his decisions as sheriff. He has repeatedly prioritized self-interest over public safety and deputy welfare. Tony and his command staff have used BSO resources, incidents, and events to enhance their political image.

In a video used by Tony during his 2020 campaign for sheriff, a black teenager was arrested and used as an example of egregious police aggression, the kind that Tony alleged he was cleaning up. One of the deputies in the video, BSO Sergeant Gregory LaCerra, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the sheriff and two high-ranking BSO staff members. The lawsuit claims the sheriff used the footage with knowledge that any unlawful use of force was “unfounded, untrue, and unsupported by any facts to support further action.”

The lawsuit also states that Tony and the “defendants chose to cave to court of public opinion, while TONY was running for election, and vilify (the) Plantiff professionally and personally, crushing his professional and personal reputation and holding both the Plaintiff and entire family up for public ridicule and humiliation, as well as placing their lives in danger.”

Both LaCerra, who had been suspended for the arrest of the teenager and Deputy Christopher Krickovich, who was fired, faced battery charges; both were cleared of any wrongdoing, were returned to their positions, and were granted back pay.

Tony’s political grandstanding at any cost continued in his response to the George Floyd tragedy. Appearing on Caribbean National Weekly live, Tony questioned the actions of the officers involved.

“It comes down to whether the actions were necessary, proportionate and whether or not a threat is expected based on the nature of the situation. In this case, talking about the Minneapolis incident, the individual was already handcuffed, he was down on the ground, so there’s very minimal exposure to the nature of the threat there,” Sheriff Tony said.

A short time later, an unprompted Tony left his deputies to kneel with Black Lives Matter protestors outside of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Building. The Marxist movement has espoused anti-Semitic views and has made official calls to defund and abolish law enforcement. Black Lives Matter may not align with Tony’s political views—he switched from Republican to Democrat shortly before becoming sheriff—but they do align with the views of his constituency.

This populist political posturing extends to Tony’s command staff. Colonel Munib Ahmed, Tony’s executive officer and second-in-command, has become Tony’s liaison to radical muslim organizations. In February 2023, Tony accompanied Ahmed to a ceremony at the Darul Uloom Institute (DUI), where Ahmed received an award from what sources describe as “a past haven for high-profile al-Qaeda terrorists run by an anti-gay imam.” In his acceptance speech, Ahmed heaped praise upon DUI’s founder, Shafayat Mohamed, who has links to known terrorist organizations and has used his position of influence to preach hate.

In addition to his loose lifestyle and flagrant disregard for his deputies in the name of politics, Tony has, at times, shown a temper completely unbefitting of someone in his position. He pulled back the curtain at his swearing-in ceremony in January of this year.

“What you don’t get to see is that I am very aggressive, I am very focused on winning, because there is too much on the line,” Tony said during his unprepared remarks, referring to how he deals with his command staff. “And there are times that these great people get caught in the crosshairs of my emotions and demands, and I push and press upon them very hard. And at times, I wonder if I’ve broke something in them. At times, I wonder if I’m pushing too hard.”

Greg Tony never outgrew the temper of that fatal day in the Badlands. Every day, it affects the morale at the Broward Sheriff’s Office. He’s admonished first responders, threatened employees, and screamed at commissioners. Some of this undignified attitude has been witnessed publicly.

When Deputy Shannon Bennett became the first BSO COVID-19 casualty, his fellow first responders gathered at North Broward Hospital. They were honoring their brother. They were present to escort the body to the funeral home. On his way to the hospital, Tony heard about the union complaints regarding the lack of COVID-19 PPEs. When he arrived, his anger boiled over. He lashed out at the deputies, later blaming their disrespect for his outburst.

“My message to my men and women who were looking on their phones at this stuff and receiving this message, weren’t lined up and trying to honor someone, one of our own, was this was not the time for that. It was inappropriate,” Tony said. “And I said that with a lot of passion in my voice because I was frustrated.”

But the frustration didn’t stop there. At the funeral home, Tony again attacked the grieving deputies. Yelling at them. Scolding them. Reminding them to focus on one of their own, instead of politics. Tony explained his actions as “true and genuine.”

According to a longtime BSO official, the sheriff excoriated his deputies in another incident after activist Chris Nelson tried to interact with Tony at a January 2022 Broward County Commission meeting.

“I am the most important person” in Broward County, Tony said, berating his staff. The source maintained that the sheriff took the deputies into a conference room, demanded they turn off their body cameras, and warned them that if they could not keep a distance between Tony and the public, punishment would result.

When U.S. Army Veteran H. Wayne Clarke ran for sheriff against Tony, he spoke with deputies about the working conditions at the sheriff’s office. What he heard compelled him to write a letter to Governor DeSantis.

“We have received dozens of reports of Tony involved in inappropriate on-duty behavior and workplace violence to include screaming profanities…,” Clarke wrote. “Other allegations include punching walls, temper tantrums and threats to employees to include “flipping tables.” These BSO employees have expressed fear of retaliation if exposed disclosing this to authorities. If true, and as Tony is currently a sworn law enforcement officer who carries a firearm and operates a government vehicle, these continued actions over the past 18 months constitute a pattern of behavior worthy of referral for anger management and workplace violence evaluations by professional medical and human resources personnel.”

The governor’s response, as always, was no response. It might not be in the governor's best interest to answer any of the many negative disclosures about his sheriff. Broward is a Democratic stronghold, and Tony has shown to be popular among the electorate. Having Tony in his pocket could be vital for DeSantis, especially if he wants his wife, Casey, to succeed him.

In the last election, two Republican allies of DeSantis, Shane Strum and George LeMieux, hosted a campaign fundraiser for Tony’s political action committee, “Broward First.” Strum was DeSantis’s first chief of staff co-chair for the transition between his first and second term, and LeMieux was a co-chair of DeSantis’s first transition team. The fundraiser was held at the Las Olas home of Wael Barsoum, who was appointed to the state Board of Medicine by DeSantis in 2021.

The financial support from DeSantis appointees only deepens the questions about the governor’s relationship with the embattled sheriff.

The Story Continues in Part Six: As Sheriff, Greg Tony has demonstrated an enormous capacity for exaggerating the truth and claiming other people’s accomplishments as his own.

This investigation is built on court records, police reports, interviews with current and former law enforcement officials, public records, and extensive newspaper coverage of Gregory Tony's corruption. Some juvenile records referenced in this series appear to have been sealed or destroyed, raising additional questions about Tony’s past that remain unanswered.