CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — Ten months after the original date, the trial for ex-Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels' began Monday. The trial was postponed three times, and Daniels has been waiting for his day in court since his August 2020 arrest.
Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Daniels after his arrest. Daniels then lost his seat in the August primary to Michelle Cook, former Atlantic Beach police chief, who also defeated a field of Republican candidates to become Clay County sheriff.
You can watch the trial at this link, on the First Coast News App, or on our Youtube page.
Here's what to know as the trial begins.
There will be 75 potential jurors that move on to the next round, and from there, six jurors and one alternate will be seated.
What happened?
Daniels' arrest came after long-running sex scandal investigation. He was charged with three counts of lying to law enforcement and one count of evidence tampering.
Daniels pleaded not guilty to the charges in 2020.
The investigation began in 2019, after officers claimed he instructed them to arrest his former lover, Cierra Smith, accusing her of stalking. She was detained for hours, but never charged.
According to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, Daniels told his deputies Smith was a stalker and asked them to arrest her and book her into jail. The investigation also found the two had exchanged sexually explicit messages, videos and images and that Daniels had sent Smith $30,000 worth of Cash App transfers, according to documents.
FDLE opened an investigation into Daniels at the request of the State Attorney following the May 2019 arrest of Cierra Smith, based on his allegations of stalking. Daniels admitted to having an affair with Smith, his subordinate, for several years, a relationship that began when Daniels was the director of the Duval County Jail and Smith was a correctional officer. However, when he had her arrested, he told the officers the relationship was over.
Following his arrest, Daniels released a video public statement saying the charges were "baffling ... because it takes a stretching of the imagination to understand personally knowing that I'm innocent."
READ MORE: Officers doubted his story from the jump
Allegations of pressure to vote for Daniels
Discovery materials that may be used as evidence in the trial, released in April 2021, also include allegations by former sheriff's office employees that they felt pressured to support Daniels' reelection bid.
Investigators also looked into employees' fears that he was using his larger-than-life social media presence for political gain. As sheriff, Daniels was known for his high-profile drug busts. However, some subordinates began to worry he was using Sheriff's Office platforms to promote himself during election season.
One employee told investigators he asked her to re-post popular videos from earlier drug raids daily in the days leading up to the August primary.
CCSO attorney Jeff Davenport echoed that, telling FDLE, “my biggest concern [is] that they were sort of utilizing the narcotics and the publicity they could generate on social media in order to boost the Sheriff’s reelection chances.”
Other officers told investigators they feared retaliation if they didn't support the sheriff. One pointed to comments Daniels made at a police union meeting at which he allegedly said some officers were in for “a rude awakening” when he was reelected and that some “probably would not want to stick around because they’re not going to like where they’re put.”
One chief told investigators the sheriff specifically instructed him to raise donations from other ranking officers – suggesting ask each director to contribute $5,000 and each director to contribute $2,000.
The report also documents concerns by staff about what they considered nakedly political messages -- particularly a recorded statement he made hours after his arrest.
One staffer was so concerned about certain statements, she edited them out of Daniels’ final recorded message, which was posted on the sheriff's office Facebook page.
"There are just some things that I didn’t feel I could put in there, my morals wouldn’t let me," she told FDLE. “I felt like he was asking people to go vote for him. I felt like in the capacity of sheriff and he just got arrested, I just didn’t feel like that was the appropriate platform.”
A second spokesperson had similar concerns:
"At first [I] did not get this feeling it was a campaign video," the spokesperson said. "But you know, as you see, as you start going along, you know, when you bring up politics, you know, it seemed like it was leaning towards that way.”
Accusations of using law enforcement databases for a woman's personal information
One night in September 2017, Dallas, Texas-area registered nurse Armeshia Johnson’s phone started blowing up.
It was midnight. It was the Sheriff of Clay County.
“He sent a text message to me saying, ‘Hey, it's Darryl. Put your big girl panties on. We need to talk,’” Johnson told First Coast News in an exclusive interview in April 2020.
Johnson didn’t know how Darryl Daniels got her number, but she knew his name. She knew he was sleeping with her boyfriend’s ex-wife, Cierra Smith.
The texts became part of a year-long Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, some of which was made public Saturday. According to that report and Johnson’s account to First Coast News, the now-suspended sheriff sent her multiple suggestive text messages, seeking to meet her in Dallas. At one point, he sent her a text salutation “hey sexy booty.” When she asked what he meant, the report says, he responded with a picture of her, which she believes Cierra Smith obtained by accessing her ex-husbands’ iCloud.
“I can recognize my body, so I knew it was me,” she said.
The FDLE report says Daniels used privileged law enforcement databases, in violation of state law, to search for Johnson’s personal information. When asked about it, FDLE says Daniels lied.
The text messages Johnson gave FDLE became part of a portrait of a sheriff the agency says transgressed in various ways, including in both personal and professional conduct.
DANIELS CLAIMS HE WAS PRESSURED TO RESIGN: Special prosecutor responds to Sheriff Darryl Daniels' claim of an 'ultimatum'
MORE ON THE CHARGES: New charges filed for former Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels
