Sheriff’s Office to undergo forensic audit in wake of financial scandal (SAR)

1. Finally, a forensic audit?  By whom? For whom?
2. No potential target or subject of a pending criminal investigation should EVER be allowed to hire and choose a forensic auditor -- that's a blatant conflict of interest. Any such an "audit" is not worth the paper it's printed on.
3. Whatever happened to the special prosecutor saying that HE was ordering a forensic audit?
4. Is there more than one forensic audit in process?
5. Or is SHOAR picking the ONLY forensic auditor and setting the parameters of the forensic audit?
6. This is a matter for the IRS and Federal Bureau of Investigation, involving federal crimes.
7. The alleged embezzler was entrusted with multiple duties that are ordinarily separated -- lax internal controls. SHOAR is responsible for the those lax internal controls. The buck stops with him. He must be held accountable
8. The alleged embezzler deposited stolen government money in a joint checking account shared with an FDLE supervisor, one of SHOAR's friends.
9. The alleged embezzlement was uncovered when Bank of America's Fraud Department reported the alleged embezzler's signature on a single check deposited directly into her account, instead of phony corporate accounts, for the first time in five years.
10. The alleged embezzler reported directly to controversial St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994.
11. Sheriff SHOAR/HOAR covered up and obstructed justice -- he should have recused himself on September 2, 2010 in the criminal investigation of Sheriff's Deputy JEREMY BANKS re: September 2, 2010 Michelle O'Connell homicide.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/death-in-st-augustine/
http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/two-gunshots/
12. SHOAR/HOAR attacked Michelle's grieving family for "molesting" her body by order an exhumation and autopsy.
13. SHOAR/HOAR stirred up harassing civil litigation against Special Agent Rusty Ray Rodgers, trying to get him fired and prosecuted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/17/us/michelle-oconnell-jeremy-banks.html
14. SHOAR/HOAR is a stench in the nostrils of our Nation.
15. Now amidst a financial scandal, SHOAR/HOAR attacks Commissioner Jeremiah Blocker for asking for an independent audit, with a snide remark about "making political hay."
16. Thank you, Commissioner Blocker, for speaking your mind. That's why the people elected you.
17. We in the reality-based community appreciate elected officials like you and Mayor Nancy Shaver: we expect data-based decisions.
18. Is SHOAR/HOAR is still mad because Blocker defeated his chosen candidate, who came in THIRD in the Republican Primary August 28, 2018? Or because Mr. Blocker replaces SHOAR's favorite Commissioner JAY MORRIS, who SHOAR persuaded to run for Commissioner, by MORRIS' own admission.
19. SHOAR/HOAR's megalomaniacal Tinpot Napoleon Trumpery, his hick hack effrontery, is like a honky tonk medley of the genre of crooked Southern Sheriff movies.
20. Is SHOAR/HOAR is obstructing justice, once again, just like President DONALD JOHN TRUMP?
21. Enough flummery, dupery and nincompoopery, waste,fraud and abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance from St. Johns County.
22. Who does SHOAR/HOAR think he's talking to? The St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee? Will the elected leaders of some 250,000 St. Johns County residents look at SHOAR/HOAR's antics and say, "Enough?"
23. "To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards of men." Ella Wheeler Wilcox
24. Like Neil Perry and L.O. Davis before him, ex officio, Sheriff SHOAR/HOAR once headed a political machine. Is that machine now in stinking ruins amidst an unresolved deputy homicide and pending embezzlement scandal?
25. Will St. Johns County Commissioners and the Florida Legislative Audit Committee do their jobs without fear or favor?
26. SHOAR/HOAR is in NO position to give orders to Commissioners, including Commissioner Blocker, or the Record..
27. SHOAR/HOAR is only ONE constituent, with one vote and one opinion, just like any other voter.
28. To Commissioners, legislators, Governor and Cabinet: Ignore SHOAR/HOAR's ranting cant and self-serving attacks on truth-seekers and his self-serving solipsistic smirky turkey statement that, “I’m going to rely on the private sector over the public sector.”
29. Sounds incredibly arrogant, not unlike French King Louis XIV, who famously said, "L'etat c'est moi." ("I AM THE STATE.).
30. FBI and IRS need to investigate, with a federal grand jury. There is no substitute.
31. Time for SHOAR/HOAR to retire or be suspended from office by the Governor?








Sheriff’s Office to undergo forensic audit in wake of financial scandal


By Jared Keever
Posted Dec 8, 2018 at 6:45 PM
Updated Dec 8, 2018 at 6:45 PM

Just weeks after a firing and arrest at the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office amid allegations that the agency’s finance director stole more than $700,000 over a five-year period, Sheriff David Shoar says he has hired an independent auditing firm to conduct a forensic audit of his agency’s books.

“That process has already begun,” he said Friday, seated in his office. “They met with criminal investigators yesterday.”

Shoar called in those investigators from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office around Nov. 15 after he said two employees from the finance department approached him with concerns about a handful of vendor accounts that were being paid through the department.

Within days, the investigators had secured an arrest warrant for the agency’s finance director, Raye A. Brutnell, who is now facing more than 150 felony charges.

Shoar on Friday reiterated points he made in a news conference last month, a day after news of the arrest broke, including that it was important to note the swiftness with which action was taken and that it was two employees who eventually raised the concerns that led to the investigation.

He also dismissed any suggestion that the state Auditor General’s Office would need to come in and conduct its own forensic audit as political posturing, particularly given his having already called in an independent firm and outside investigators to look into the problem.

“This is not the time to make political hay,” Shoar said.

Such an audit by the state agency was raised when Allen MacDonald, chief financial officer of the St. Johns County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Office, appeared before the Board of County Commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday.

Newly elected commissioner Jeremiah Blocker asked MacDonald and a staff member of his about the use of a forensic audit — which is more specific and focused than a general audit — in the wake of such an event and whether one had ever been conducted at the county or at a constitutional office within the county in the last 20 years.


MacDonald said there had not given a history of “year after year after year of there not being any findings” at the conclusion of the general annual audits, or “any reason to believe that a forensic audit needed to be performed on those officials.”

MacDonald was before the board on Tuesday at the request of the commissioners to hear from St. Johns County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Hunter Conrad about the county’s “internal controls” and safeguards in light of the recent troubles at the Sheriff’s Office.

A scheduling conflict did not allow Conrad to be there, but in a letter he promised to “use each and every tool available to mitigate risk, foster transparency, and embrace accountability.”

MacDonald explained a little about the county’s annual auditing process which, by statute, is overseen by the Clerk’s Office and includes audits not only of County administrative offices, but of the constitutional offices — like the Clerk’s and and the Sheriff’s — as well.

In his presentation and in response to other questions from commissioners, MacDonald said it was his recommendation that any “material” coming out of the criminal investigation should be reviewed by county staff to “ensure, if there are any shortcomings within the Board’s internal controls, that the shortcomings be addressed.”

At that same meeting, County Attorney Patrick McCormack said in response to a question about the process from Commissioner Jeb Smith that the conclusion of the investigation would also be the appropriate time to review the county’s contract with Carr, Riggs & Ingram — the firm that conducts the annual audits — to determine if they had met their contractual obligations in recent years.

Shoar agreed Friday that there likely are things that need to be reviewed with the annual auditing process and said he welcomed that work, but held fast to the conviction that any deep audit of his agency was going to be done by an independent firm rather than the state agency.

“I’m going to rely on the private sector over the public sector,” he said.