As my mother and grandmother taught, "Time wounds all heels."
Public records appear to have been altered by Keith, UF audit finds
Jamie Keith. [File photo]
By Cindy Swirko
Gainesville Sun
Posted Aug 11, 2017 at 2:33 PM
Updated Aug 11, 2017 at 10:06 PM
While not conclusive, report says former general counsel may have withheld documents
A University of Florida investigation found evidence that former UF General Counsel Jamie Keith may have altered documents, withheld public records and improperly billed the university for outside legal advice.
The investigation by the UF Office of Internal Audit determined it could not draw conclusions in three of the allegations because the probe ended with Keith’s resignation in May. Nevertheless, the report found irregularities in how public records requests filed by Gainesville lawyer Huntley Johnson were handled by the university.
“Finally, evidence supported that Ms. Keith was heavily involved in reviewing and editing the documents that were provided in response to Mr. Johnson’s public records request, contrary to what she specifically told university administration,” the report states. “We identified three instances in which it appeared that Ms. Keith altered public records, or omitted responsive documents from public records requests.”
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Keith has consistently denied any wrongdoing. “The audit report determined that facts were insufficient to reach a conclusion of misconduct on all of the public records allegations,” Keith said in a statement provided Friday afternoon by the law firm Holland & Knight.
UF, in a statement with the release of the report, said President Kent Fuchs has called for additional training but would not address specifics about Keith.
“The report principally addresses the actions of a single former employee and we have no further comment about it,” the statement read. “President Fuchs has called for the following measures to be implemented to further enhance our processes: Expand public records training; Enact guidance to help manage complaints related to workplace or academic environments.”
Fuchs stood by Keith as public records came out over the last few months that included documents in which legal office staff were critical of Keith.
He called her one of the best university general counsels in the nation. He essentially repeated that when she resigned. He said she resigned because she was tired of publicity.
Meanwhile, Eighth Circuit State Attorney Bill Cervone said he received the report Friday and will read it before deciding whether any legal action for violation of Florida’s public records law is warranted.
Johnson requested the investigation on the issues of public records and on Keith hiring a Tallahassee attorney to determine if Johnson had violated Florida Bar ethics.
The investigation centered on four allegations.
The first involved the handling of anonymous complaints regarding Keith’s legal abilities and management style made to the UF Board of Trustees and to UF’s compliance hotline.
In response to the complaints, consultant Herschel Kahn was hired to work with Keith. They developed a questionnaire for employees of the legal office to which staff could respond in writing, in writing anonymously or in person with Keith.
The investigation determined that 11 employees provided feedback — three verbal and eight written. Of the eight, two were signed and six were anonymous. The six anonymous responses were sealed in individual envelopes and given to UF Chief of Staff Win Phillips.
But just five were released to comply with a public records request — two signed and three anonymous. And at least one of the responses had been altered.
“During our investigation (a legal office) employee informed us that the survey response that they had written was not the same as the version of their survey response that had been submitted in response to public records request,” the reports states.
“Our comparison of survey responses revealed that two of the original survey responses were altered before being released as public records, and three of the original survey responses were not included in the response...” the report continued. “Notably, all of the survey responses that were altered and omitted were unfavorable of Ms. Keith.”
Keith told investigators she did not touch the content of the responses. Kahn said in an interview that it was apparent to him that Keith had seen the responses before they talked about them.
Phillips told investigators he had no knowledge of how Keith may have gotten the surveys after they were delivered to his office.
Investigators drew no conclusion to the allegation because the investigation ended with Keith’s resignation.
The second allegation involved Keith using UF money to hire Tallahassee attorney Mark Herron, supposedly to investigate Johnson.
Johnson had requested UF to pay nearly $400,000 in attorneys fees for a football player who had been accused of assault, but later cleared. On Jan. 5, Keith told Johnson the university declined to pay the fees. Keith told investigators that Johnson told her he would look into every financial transaction she had made.
After than, Johnson made 13 public records requests, all aimed at Keith. Keith said she hired Herron, at up to $12,000, to advise her as to whether she should report Johnson to the state bar for ethics violations.
Investigators determined that Keith’s concerns about Johnson’s professional conduct should not have been paid by UF, and also that Herron was not hired to investigate Johnson as he had claimed.
The third allegation involved a retirement contract for former UF President Bernie Machen. An email released as part of the public records request hints that Machen had given Keith what she wanted in her contract but that she was not doing the same with him.
“When we worked on a new contract for you I asked what you wanted and gave it to you. No quibbles, no negotiating. The latest draft from your attorney totally screwed up what I was asking for,” Machen wrote. “Are you so callous that you forget how I treated you in a humane and respectful manner? I deserve the same consideration.”
A review of the contracts of Machen and Keith, along with interviews, did not indicate a trade-off between the two, the report states. However, investigators say Keith was heavily involved in the negotiation of Machen’s contract when she should not have been because an outside attorney was hired for that.
The final point alleges Keith had destroyed public records including emails and text messages.
Johnson in February filed a lawsuit against UF claiming it was illegally delaying response to his public records requests.
The investigative report states that requests are typically handled by UF attorney Amy Quillen. Quillen told investigators she wasn’t aware of any requests until February. By that time 15 requests concerning Keith had been received, the report states.
“Ms. Quillen said that she didn’t know what Ms. Keith was doing with the documents, but that there was a standard process to reviewing documents gathered for a public records request and that they were not following the normal process,” the report states.
In a March 29 email, Keith wrote that she has not been involved in handling the public records requests. Yet, legal office employees told investigators that Keith told them in a meeting held shortly after The Sun on Feb. 9 published an article on the lawsuit that she had been handling the requests because she didn’t want to burden the others, the report states.
“Our review found that public records were altered and documents were omitted from responses to public records requests. Ms. Keith could not explain how the documents were excluded from the public records request, or why she sometimes printed emails and maintained them in a hard copy rather than electronically, effectively preventing their discovery under the normal process...,” the report states.
“As a result of Ms. Keith’s resignation on May 31, 2017, she was not reinterviewed to ascertain whether she had additional knowledge about the evidence gathered ... preventing us from reaching a conclusion.”
In a response, Keith said the finding on the hiring of Herron makes no sense and is wrong. She contends the hiring was a valid use of UF money.
Keith unequivocally denies changing or destroying survey responses, adding the audit did not find actual evidence of who did it or even what was done.
Keith said she would have had no way to get the responses from Phillips’ office.
“To gain access, I would have had to break into (Phillips’) office suite (which is locked when he and his assistant are not there) or otherwise manage to take them from his office, copy them and returned to his office without his knowledge...” Keith said. “That is preposterous, has not been suggested by anyone and did not happen.”
Keith also noted that Fuchs, in an interview with The Sun, said in a June 10 article that “It’s quite clear there are individuals out to try to harm Jamie Keith.”
UF’s process of producing public records was followed to respond to the large number of requests until the requests became overwhelming, Keith said.
She was not initially involved in collecting the records or make decisions on their production, Keith said, but was given an opportunity to review them. When the attorney in charge of the request went on vacation, Keith and others continued to review them to keep the process moving.
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