FBI probe into county corruption wider than initially thought
Listen to Part 1 of the FBI audio tape:
Listen to Part 2 of the FBI audio tape
Listen to Part 3 of the FBI audio tape
Listen to Part 4 of the FBI audio tape
The scope of the FBI probe digging into possible corruption in St. Johns County was wider than previously thought with the revelation that a fourth person was making surveillance tapes for the FBI.
The newest tape was recorded a month after it became public that former St. Johns County Commissioner Tom Manuel was the subject of an FBI investigation. He was later found guilty of accepting two bribes totaling $60,000 and is now serving a 21-month prison term, followed by house arrest.
The tape made on July 14, 2008, between developer Roger O'Steen, president of The PARC Group in Jacksonville, and public relations firm owner Paul McCormick shows the FBI was still collecting evidence and apparently looking at other individuals.
The PARC Group is the developer of Nocatee, a major residential, commercial and industrial project in northeastern St. Johns County and adjacent Duval County. McCormick did public relations work for Nocatee.
In the tape, McCormick steers the conversation at least three times to then-Commissioner Jim Bryant and his rental of a plane from O'Steen.
No charges have been filed. Contacted about the tape, the FBI declined to comment.
Here is a summary of the people doing the taping and what they found:
-- Developer's representative Bruce Robbins of Atlantic Beach taped Manuel many times from April 2007 to June 5, 2008, when the FBI detained Manuel. In two of those tapes, Manuel accepted bribes. The first was in April 2008 for $10,000 and the second was on June 5, 2008, the day he was apprehended, for $50,000. Robbins represented the Falcone Group of Boca Raton, the developer of Twin Creeks, a planned major development in northwestern St. Johns County that was never started because of the sour economy.
Robbins started to tape Manuel after St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar went to the FBI either in late 2006 or early 2007. Shoar has said he initially went to the FBI after land developer George McClure told him that Manuel "was asking us to do inappropriate things or arrange for employment for him inappropriately." He has never said specifically what those actions by Manuel were.
-- Manuel taped conversations for the FBI in June for about a week after he was taken into FBI custody on June 5, 2008, the day he accepted his second bribe. He stopped wearing a wire for the FBI after it became public that the FBI had detained him. Manuel was formally charged in October 2008 and pleaded guilty in January 2010 and is now in prison.
-- McClure taped Shoar on June 11, 2008. He said he did so at the request of the FBI because they wanted to find out what Shoar and Manuel said to each other in a conversation they had earlier that day. Manuel taped that conversation for the FBI, so agents already knew what Shoar and Manuel said to each other. Shoar has said that McClure was wrong and that the FBI was not targeting him. Rather, he said McClure's telephone was wiretapped and that his conversation was caught up in that.
-- The McCormick tape of O'Steen shows that the FBI was continuing its surveillance after June 2008, when the previously last known FBI surveillance tape was of the McClure-Shoar tape on June 11, 2008. Also, because McCormick steered the conversation repeatedly to Bryant's use of O'Steen's plane, it appears the target of his inquiries were Bryant, not O'Steen.
The introduction of a new FBI surveillance tape adds to the list of unanswered questions surrounding the FBI investigation, including: Why did the FBI target Bryant, and why did McCormick tape the session for the FBI?
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