FBI tape of Shoar shows he thought his role would remain secret

Posted: December 17, 2009 - 12:09am

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* Transcript: Shoar and McClure

By TIFFANY PAKKALA

St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar thought his role in initiating the investigation of suspended County Commissioner Tom Manuel would never come out.

"I'm not even going to let on that it initiated from me ... that I handed it over to the feds," the sheriff said in a phone conversation that the FBI recorded between the sheriff and attorney George McClure, who was cooperating with the FBI, in June 2008.

Manuel's attorney, William Sheppard of Jacksonville, filed the transcript of the conversation Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville as part of a motion demanding FBI reports about how the investigation into Manuel's conduct began. Sheppard argues the transcript is proof that the FBI is withholding information that could be favorable to Manuel's defense.

The tape gives a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes conversations that led to the year-and-a-half-long investigation.

Highlights of the tape include:

* Shoar and McClure approached the FBI shortly after Manuel was elected in late 2006, after discussing concerns about Manuel during a chance meeting at a bookstore. Exactly what led them to go to the FBI is not clear in the transcript.

* The FBI taped Shoar at least once, but the tape doesn't say why Shoar's conversation was taped. It also is unclear if Shoar, or any other St. Johns County elected official, other than Manuel, was subject to FBI taping.

* Shoar expressed contempt for the Board of County Commissioners and said the county manager should take more control.

* McClure showed concern that the sheriff would look like a "king maker" if he wasn't careful in his dealings with the County Commission.

* Shoar said Manuel confessed to him, saying, "I got weak," and asked Shoar to be a character witness, which Shoar said he would do. Shoar also told Manuel he should resign immediately.

The FBI taped Shoar and McClure's conversation just days after Manuel accepted a cash bribe. The former commissioner pleaded guilty to one count of bribery July and faces sentencing on Jan. 28.

Sheppard's motion says the sheriff "appeared to brag" that his meeting in early 2007 with McClure was "the beginning of the damn thing," referring to the Manuel investigation.

In the transcript, Shoar said he was "bothered" by something McClure told him about Manuel when they met at a restaurant. They discussed it again when they ran into each other later at Barnes & Noble, and then Shoar decided to turn the case over to the FBI.

Throughout their recorded conversation, McClure repeatedly cautioned Shoar not to get involved in the process to name Manuel's replacement.

"If the governor calls you and says, 'David, what do you think about A versus B?' give him your opinion, but if people think you're being king maker, it's a bad idea for you," McClure told the sheriff.

Shoar appeared to agree at the time, saying, "I'm not going to get into that role because that's not my job. I did my job, and my job was to investigate a potential crime or cause it to be investigated, and who gets picked and how they get picked, you know -- obviously, I care so much about this county I don't want to see another Tom Manuel, but I got my own problems."

However, Shoar sent the governor a letter recommending Phil Mays of Ponte Vedra Beach, for the post less than two weeks after Manuel was suspended. In addition, Manuel's opponent from the 2006 primary election, incumbent Bruce Maguire, applied for the position, listing Shoar among his supporters. Gov. Charlie Crist awarded the position to Mays.

The sheriff has continued to take an active role in appointments to the commission. He was listed as one of the three references in Ray Quinn's application to fill County Commissioner Mark Miner's post while Miner serves in the National Guard in Iraq. Crist granted that appointment this week.

'High-fiving' has to stop

In his taped conversation with McClure, Shoar said Manuel's downfall was a chance to reduce the County Commission's power. He said he told County Manager Michael Wanchick, "You need to tell those commissioners that you're going to run this f

ing county and close their offices up and get them all one office and they can share it."

He said the "high-fiving" and "back-slapping" among the commissioners had to stop.

At the same time the Manuel investigation was wrapping up, Shoar also accepted financial donations that tie him to the key confidential informant in the case, Bruce Robbins of Jacksonville Beach. The informant and others who listed Robbins' business address donated a total of $2,000 to Shoar's re-election campaign in 2008. The sheriff won the race, which was uncontested.

During the taped conversation with McClure, Shoar said he didn't think the Manuel case "will ever get tagged as a political issue. Number one, because it wasn't."

The sheriff said Manuel, in fact, was the top supporter of his budget, which had to be approved by the County Commission.

Shoar told McClure that he called Manuel shortly after the FBI detained him.

"I never thought I'd ever hear him humble. But he said, 'David,' he says, 'I'm so sorry I let you down. There's so much we could have done in the county together,'" Shoar said.

Shoar said he told Manuel, "There's always redemption and there's always forgiveness."

Then he told him to do the "right thing," meaning to resign. But to date, Manuel has not officially stepped down from the post, which expires in November.

On June 22, 2008, about a week and a half after the Shoar-McClure conversation was taped, The Record ran an article quoting several legal experts who questioned Shoar's decision to discuss an investigation that was still going on.

"Generally speaking, criminal investigations at the federal level are intended to be secret," Latour Lafferty, a former federal prosecutor, said at the time. He cited Local Rule 4.10 of the Middle District of Florida, which says government personnel assisting with a criminal case are prohibited from releasing information without the U.S. District Court's permission.

Shoar defended his decision at the time, telling The Record that he wasn't comfortable lying to reporters who asked him about the case. He said that he had, in fact, voted for Manuel in 2006 and had "taken a liking" to him. The case "has broken my heart," he said.

Shoar saw Manuel as 'dirty'

On the FBI tape, however, Shoar told McClure that he heard rumors about Manuel's corruption even before the commissioner was elected. And he thought Manuel was "dirty" from the first time they met when Shoar was the police chief of St. Augustine.

Once Manuel accepted the cash bribes from Robbins, Shoar said he pressed Jim Casey, special agent in charge of the FBI's Jacksonville field office, to move along with the case so Manuel would be removed from his post. Although Manuel was detained in June of 2008, he was not indicted until the following October, when he was suspended from office.

Shoar told McClure in the tape that he wanted Manuel to resign early on so his replacement could run during an upcoming election that was already scheduled rather than forcing the county to schedule a special election.

But McClure warned Shoar to keep quiet about the election, saying, "Nobody is ever going to divorce you from the office you serve, and they're going to say, 'What the hell is the sheriff doing, you know, trying to play king maker on the timing of this stuff?'"

He suggested Shoar instead play the role of an "island of stability," reassuring the community that the county government is cleaning up its act.

"If people get the idea that there was any political motivation to this, then the fact that Tom Manuel is a crook will get lost," McClure said.

The motion Manuel's attorney filed said the court has previously denied requests for additional materials that could help the defense. But the attorney argued that the transcript proves there is information that has yet to be released, because the FBI should have filed "302 reports" (investigators' reports) detailing how the investigation began.

The motion said the information will be "important to the court's understanding of how Mr. Manuel became involved in the conversations and conduct giving rise to this case."