When Boynton Beach police officer Stephen Maiorino was arrested on rape charges last week, Chief Jeffrey Katz held a news conference to announce the “vile and inexcusable” accusations against one of his own.
But had Katz decided not to announce the arrest, the public might never have learned about it.
That’s because in Palm Beach County, police limit news about their fellow officers’ arrests by selectively removing them from the county jail’s booking blotter.
The decision to cherry-pick names from the system is not a public records issue, experts say. The booking blotter is a public service but the jail is not required to produce one.
But cherry-picking allows for favoritism by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail and publishes the booking blotter on its website, pbso.org.
The agency, in a one-paragraph statement, blamed its inability to publish the names on the booking blotter’s software. The sheriff’s office can’t edit out information that is exempt from public release, such as an officer’s date of birth and home address, so they delete everything.
Until this year, however, the system was providing the name of the officer but withholding the exempt information.
The agency, taking five days to answer questions from The Palm Beach Post, didn’t say why officials no longer could edit information fed to the blotter, or if the software recently had been changed.
By leaving out officer names, it could mean that police — some of whom are accused of predatory crimes such as stalking, criminal transmission of HIV and lewd or lascivious conduct — could escape public scrutiny.
At least five local cops were arrested this year but never appeared in the jail’s public log:
- Maiorino, the Boynton Beach officer who is accused of raping a 20-year-old woman while on duty in a field at gunpoint.
- John Ross, a PBSO deputy accused of domestic abuse after he physically picked up his live-in girlfriend, pushed her and squeezed her chest, leaving marks.
- Roger Kirby, a PBSO deputy accused of battering a 5-year-old boy who might be his son. The boy was left hospitalized with hemorrhaging around the eyes and a swollen lip.
- Joaquin Fonseca, an undercover PBSO narcotics detective arrested on charges of official misconduct and cocaine possession.
- Ervans Saintclair, a Greenacres cop arrested for having unprotected sex with women while knowing he was HIV-infected. Police have identified eight women they believe were victimized by Saintclair.
Their criminal cases are pending.
The public learned about Maiorino and Saintclair from the Boynton and Greenacres police departments, which issued statements or held news conferences to announce the arrests.
But PBSO never disclosed the arrests of Ross and Kirby and only issued a statement on Fonseca after reporters asked about him. The information became public because tipsters, requesting anonymity, told The Post or other media.
Aside from cops, it’s unclear if others, such as prosecutors, judges or even officer’s spouses, are spared from appearing in the jail’s booking blotter. Last November, a Broward County circuit court judge, Cynthia Imperato, was listed in the Palm Beach County booking blotter after an arrest on DUI charges in Boca Raton. Later her information was removed without explanation.
It’s a powerful tool. The site, on pbso.org, is supposed to provide the name, mugshot, home address, date of birth and reason for arrest for everyone booked into the jail within the last year. Everyone from loitering suspects to murderers appear online.
Reporters scan the blotter to find stories. Companies such as mugshots.com mine the blotter for images and information, then make money by reposting the information on their own sites and charging people to have the information and images removed. (The cost to remove one person’s arrest information from mugshots.com is $399, according to the website.)
PBSO is not required to provide a public blotter, or even make sure it’s accurate.
Because it’s a service provided by police, its accuracy is not subject to public records laws, said Bryce Albu, a media lawyer who represents The Post.
Any information, including mugshots, on arrested cops can be obtained through a public records request, PBSO said in its statement.
But The Post requested the mugshots of Maiorino, Ross and Kirby on Tuesday. As of close of business Friday, PBSO’s records custodians had not responded. The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the only delay allowed to produce public records is the “limited reasonable time” needed to retrieve the record and assure it doesn’t contain exempt information.
There’s no legal basis for making an officer’s criminal history a secret, Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Samantha Andrews said. But how police choose to share the information is up to them.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office, which operates the county jail, doesn’t delete officer names from its public database, spokeswoman Gina Carter said.
But arrested officers can request in writing that their mugshots not be made public, as the law allows, she said.
“It doesn’t happen automatically,” she said.
Alternatively, police could issue press releases whenever one of their own is arrested. But PBSO, Boynton Beach police and West Palm Beach police don’t have policies requiring them to do so.
