State tips hand at one potential collection method against Brutnell

As the scandal involving how, for more than five years, St Johns County Sheriff David Shoar allowed the embezzlement of more than $700,000 to occur at a desk 15-feet from his own, the Florida Department on Ethics has initiated an inquiry in the matter that may hold a clue toward one potential attachable asset under state law governing specified felonies by public employees.

On December 10th, Hunter S. Conrad, Esq., St Johns County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, provided General Counsel for the state commission, C. Christopher Anderson, III, with an un-redacted copy of the Information filed by the State Attorney in this case.

On December 19th, Anderson forwarded those documents to the State Board of Administration

Office of Defined Contributions asking that they determine whether Brutnell’s retirement rights and privileges should be forfeited, as provided in Section 112.3173, Florida Statutes.

Details as to how much money, if any, will be subject to forfeiture were not released.

Where did the stolen money go?  According to the initial investigation and sworn statements obtained by Historic City News, most of the money, hundreds-of-thousands of dollars, made its way through a joint checking account held by Raye Brutnell and her husband, 45-year-old Mark Edward Brutnell, a director with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. 

He has made no public statement; however, both his wife and Sheriff Shoar have each said, at least so far, that Mark Brutnell, who runs the FDLE Regional Operations Center in Tampa, would not have been aware that such an extremely large amount of money was changing hands in the personal bank account. Mark Brutnell has been employed by FDLE since 1995 and is paid $116,500 per year, Raye Brutnell was employed by SJSO since 1991 and was paid $108,885 per year plus benefits.