RON DESANTIS BIGGEST MISTAKE

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In late 2023, Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis took the stage at CNN’s Town Hall at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. He was bleeding in the polls. With just weeks until the state caucuses, DeSantis aimed to narrow the distance between himself and Donald Trump. He was employing a new tactic. The rhetoric he hoped would consolidate his base was gone. Conservative buzzwords were replaced with Trump attacks—a last-ditch effort to appeal to the broader electorate. He shuffled nervously, fussing and tripping over pedantic details whenever he spoke.

He hesitated after each question was posed.

When Jake Tapper, the moderator for the evening's proceedings, asked who his favorite Democratic official was, DeSantis paused and stammered. Still, only one person came to mind when pressed for an answer.

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"I appointed a fellow down there, the Sheriff of Broward, to replace Scott Israel, who has a great life story."

A great life story? Not really.

Governor Ron Desantis appointed Gregory Tony after removing Scott Israel due to Israel’s role in the Parkland School shooting after Tony was recommended by Andrew Pollack who’s daughter was tragically murdered at Parkland.

Greg Tony initially seemed a smart pick following the removal of Scott Israel due to the Parkland school shooting response failures. A veteran of the Coral Springs Police Department (CSPD), Tony represented the agency whose first responders were credited with taking appropriate action during the tragedy. He was also Broward County's first Black sheriff. But within months, troubling revelations about Tony's past emerged: He had fatally shot a teenager in 1993, concealed LSD use when applying to the CSPD, and reportedly provided false information on multiple law enforcement applications.

We must start at the beginning to understand how Greg Tony's appointment became one of the governor's most significant political liabilities. This is the first installment of a seven-part investigation into Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, a man who built his career on lies, violence, and manipulation. We will chart Tony’s career from the streets of Philadelphia to the most powerful political office in South Florida.

Murder. Identity fraud. Perjury. Multiple state and federal investigations. Ethical violations. Workplace violence. Stolen valor. We will also document his far-left pro-Black Life Matters politics, his association with a radical Islamic Mosque and his epic mismanagement of the State’s largest Sheriff’s Office. With at least three state investigations concluding with a strong recommendation to Governor DeSantis that Sheriff Gregory Tony be terminated, Broward’s controversial Sheriff and his policies are certain to be front and center in the 2026 Republican primary for Governor.

Gregory Tony is a problem Governor Ron Desantis has managed to avoid, but his wife Casey will have to confront if she runs for Governor.

The rise of Greg Tony began with violence. Long before Tony claimed the sheriff’s badge, he claimed a life, but when he applied for the appointed position of Sheriff, he neglected to mention it in the forms he was legally required to fill out.

The story begins…

“Hector put his hands up like this (indicating his arms above his head with the palms facing forward, like a surrendering position). Hector said, “If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me.” Then Greg just shot him.” – Statement of David Serrano, Witness to the shooting death of Hector Rodriguez

Drugs. Gangs. Violence. That was the Badlands. But fourteen-year-old Greg Tony possessed something that gave him status, legitimacy, and power in the rundown stretch of Philadelphia: a .32 caliber Rossi revolver. His father, William Scott, owned the weapon. He later told police he kept it under his pillow or in a box. A month before Hector Rodriguez's death, Tony proudly showed it off to friends in his kitchen. On a fateful day in 1993, he would prove he was not afraid to use it.

Tony and Rodriguez were outside the family home on Hutchinson Avenue that afternoon. They were laughing and having fun. That’s how William Scott remembered it. Two witnesses, David Serrano, 17, and Jonathan Berberna, 13, heard Rodriguez joke about a ‘piper lady,’ a drug addict ambling down the street. He compared the woman to Tony’s mother.

It set Tony off.

"It got to where Greg wanted to fight with Hector, but Hector was telling Greg that he was just a boy and he didn't fight boys," Serrano recounted to investigators.

Tony ran into his house alone. He exited with his father's revolver.

"His pop tried to keep him from going back outside, but he got past his pop…," Berberna said in his official statement.

The first shot hit an unarmed Rodriguez in the chest.

"Don't touch him or I'll shoot," Tony reportedly shouted when the two bystanders tried to help the wounded teenager.

He then shot Rodriguez again in the chest and once in the left hand. The wounded man turned away. Tony finished with two bullets in the upper back and one in the base of the skull.

Berberna ran to the Rodriguez home. He and Hector's mom hurried back to her son, now lying in the street. Each time the dying boy opened his mouth to speak, a deluge of blood blocked his words.

Berberna recalled Hector's father screaming as Tony fled the scene: "You didn't have to shoot him, you're best friends."

The .32 caliber Rossi revolver was never recovered. Witnesses failed to show up in court. Tony was acquitted.

Juvenile court records detailing the case appear to be missing or erased.

When the incident resurfaced years later, the sheriff claimed it was self-defense.

"The press accounts at the time said we were friends, we were not," Tony wrote in an email to the Florida Bulldog. "There are quotes from locals speculating on what may have happened. They were not there. They did not witness the terrified 14-year-old boy who thought his and his family's life was in mortal danger, trying to protect that family."

Tony has said, under oath, that the case was never sealed.

Another lie.

Governor DeSantis wasn’t offered Tony’s altered version of events before considering his appointment. When asked if the shooting incident would compel him to remove Tony, he was defensive. He echoed the sheriff’s unconvincing words.

“We did a background check. It was self-defense, so he was never charged with anything,” DeSantis said. “It seems like he was in a very rough neighborhood, and he was trying to defend his family.”

The background check was threadbare. DeSantis gave the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) less than a day’s notice before making the appointment.

"…that's ultimately a decision that the people in Broward can make," the governor added. "It's not going to be anything I'm going to get involved in." Governor did get involved the day he appointed a criminal to one of the highest law enforcement positions in the Sunshine State.

The Story Continues in Part Two: With the help of a friend, Greg Tony skirts the law and flees to Florida, starting a new life through fraud and deception.

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.