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With federal indictments looming, Hunt takes a dive
EPA is reportedly ready to turn investigation over to federal prosecutors to start grand jury proceedings; Hunt, Lane, Wilson at the center of EPA's target
-- John Patten, 01/10/04, revised 01/12/04
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Related:
City manager to resign on Tuesday
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 01/10/04
City manager says job is 'taking a toll' on his health
-- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 01/10/04

Let's get ready to rumble!!!!!!
Venice Florida! dot com has learned that the EPA criminal investigation into the city's wastewater plant is finally ready to go to federal prosecutors. According to inside sources, the scope of the investigation has been "massive," going well beyond undocumented spills into Curry Creek. The EPA will reportedly be asking prosecutors to seek numerous indictments against current and former city officials and employees.

No big surprises: City Manager George Hunt, Utilities Director John Lane and Assistant Utilities Director Patricia 'Pat' Wilson are at the center of the dartboard. The EPA will reportedly be asking fed prosecutors to seek charges against the trio that include illegal dumping on municipal, federal and private land, illegal dumping into public waterways, falsification of records, coercion, extortion, witness tampering, obstruction and destruction/concealment of evidence.

Hunt and Assistant City Manager Jane O'Connor will likely face severe scrutiny on accusations of witness tampering and obstruction for the handling of the Troy Evans affair. It is not known at this time whether or not the EPA will be asking prosecutors to seek an indictment against O'Connor, but evidence accumulated by Venice Florida! dot com shows that O'Connor clearly and knowingly participated in the hounding of Evans for the sole reason that Evans has cooperated with EPA criminal investigators. The EPA may not go after O'Connor, but they easily could if they wanted to.

My best guess, based on additional information that I am are unable to print at this time: O'Connor is extremely likely to be targeted for prosecution by the EPA for witness tampering.

Additionally, Mayor Dean Calamaras and former councilman David Farley had personal roles in the Evans debacle, both having met with Evans sometime last year. Shortly after those meetings, at the August 27, 2003 city council meeting, Hunt publicly and viciously chastised Evans while Farley and Calamaras nodded in support of Hunt. Hunt went so far as to punish Evans by announcing that he would be levying a suspension of indeterminate length on the worker for violating the chain of command. While the announced suspension was never actually levied against Evans, the humiliation factor was stupefying. Depending on how deep their involvement was in Hunt's retribution against Evans, Farley and Calamaras could very well be implicated for witness tampering and/or obstruction.

Additional targets of the investigation include a number of present and former city officials, supervisors and employees.

Two years in the making, the investigation covers a long history of ecologic crimes and stretches back to at least the Graser administration. The city, under Hunt's direct guidance, has done everything in its power to defy the EPA at nearly every turn during the course of the investigation.

Whether federal prosecutors and a federal grand jury will go along with all of that is a different story. The judicial filtering process works a bit like a sieve, so you might not see indictments on all of those charges, but you'll likely see indictments on most of them. It is unlikely that federal prosecutors will walk away from this one, not after two years of one of the most intensive investigations that the EPA has ever mounted.

Sounds serious, right?

It is.

Recent events
Back in October of 2003, Hunt issued a memo to John Lane stating that EPA criminal investigator Dan Green wanted to interview and/or re-interview a number of city employees. Green had apparently complained that the city was blocking his access to employees and had demanded that the city cease its interference in the federal investigation. In the memo to Lane, Hunt indicated that he wanted the city's hired gun, environmental attorney Jon Thomas, to go along for the ride. Lane, in turn, wrote a letter to Green that was syrupy enough to risk transmission of diabetes to anyone who read it. Lane wrote that the city was more than happy to cooperate fully with the EPA, seemingly orgasmically thrilled about the prospect. The only thing missing were X's and O's underneath Lane's signature.

Green, in turn, reportedly interviewed and questioned a number of city employees in recent months, somewhere between 15 and 20 of them. Some of the sessions were reportedly quite lengthy and detailed. A few employees, formerly cocky about the investigation, were reported as being visibly shaken after their sessions, weighted down with the knowledge that fun time is now officially over. For a number of supervisors and employees in the wastewater division, a near visible grey cloud envelopes them as they try to perform their daily duties, weighed down with the certainty that legal doom is upon them.

Green, now done with the interviews, is reportedly ready to hand off the entire case to federal prosecutors.

Hunt dives for cover, Wilson and Lane left naked
Recent articles in the Herald-Tribune and the Gondolier indicate that Hunt will be resigning soon. The articles hint that Hunt is doing so due to health concerns amidst mounting pressures of public criticism, bad press and calls for workshops to review Hunt's job performance and his participation in negotiations between the city and Sharky's Restaurant.

The Gondo reports that insiders have stated that Hunt will resign at next Tuesday's council meeting.

So where does that leave Lane and Wilson? As Hunt is the only protector between them and a council that doesn't seem too fond of them of late, the pair are currently walking around with the word 'DOOMED' tattooed on their foreheads.

With Hunt coughing up blood from falling on his own sword, Lane and Wilson have only two powerful friends left at city hall: Mayor Calamaras and Councilman Jim Myers. While Calamaras has praised and defended the pair in the past, it's a sure bet that he's reassessing his alliances presently in the wake of Hunt's current troubles.

And Myers? With quotable friends like him, who needs enemies?

Even that is a comparatively minor concern, however. Keeping their jobs is the least of their worries -- after a long two-year war that has slowly ripped this town apart, Lane and Wilson are facing the beginning of the serious final legal battle against a formidable opponent the likes of which Venice has never seen before, and they are fully aware that the battle will be starting very, very soon.