Tallahassee Democrat by Jeff Burlew
October 11, 2017
The city of Tallahassee turned over 150,000 electronic records to the FBI on Wednesday to comply with a federal grand jury subpoena for communications of City Commissioner Scott Maddox and his closest current and former aides and associates.
The city said that in cooperation with the FBI, it will provide another 1,500 or so records in coming weeks.
“These records that are non-electronic (brochures, notes, etc.) were screened by the FBI (Wednesday) morning and require additional time for city staff to convert to a digital format for delivery,” the city said in a news release.
The subpoena, dated Sept. 6, demanded all communications since Jan. 1, 2012, to and from Maddox; Paige Carter Smith, his longtime friend and CEO of the Downtown Improvement Authority; Allie Merzer Fleming, his City Hall aide; and Gary Yordon, his former business associate who works as a media consultant and talk show host.
The records were due Oct. 3, but the city said it arranged with the FBI to deliver them later. On Monday, city officials told the Tallahassee Democrat it would take two weeks to deliver them all.
The subpoena was the third delivered to either the city or the Community Redevelopment Agency in connection with a federal investigation into alleged public corruption. But it was the first to directly name an elected official. [READ MORE]
