JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A former narcotics detective has filed suit against two local sheriffs, claiming they conspired to destroy his political ambitions.
Bryan Turner, who was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in 2017, claims Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper worked together to destroy his career and derail his political ambitions.
The lawsuit obtained by First Coast News, recalls that Turner was involved in a fatal shooting of a drug suspect. In the internal police probe that followed, JSO investigators learned Turner and two fellow undercover officers had thrown away beer they’d been using as props. Sheriff Williams said the car constituted a crime scene and the destruction of the beer was, therefore, a criminal offense.
All three were charged with evidence tampering – charges that were dropped by prosecutors a few months later. But Turner says the damage was done.
The suit says the disgrace scuttled his plan to run for sheriff in Nassau County. It cites several other instances in which undercover officers either had beer in their vehicles or otherwise violated JSO policy, and faced lesser punishment.
Turner spoke to First Coast News last year.
"If you ask anyone who knows anything about the sheriff’s office it should have been handled internally,” Turner said. "The beer was never evidence, it has been in undercover narcotics vehicles for years and years and years.”
First Coast News has requested a comment from both agencies.