Plategate abates: Jax Sheriff clears Councilman on ‘stolen’ tag

Gaffney's abortion bill isn't getting traction.

The latest twist in the case of Jacksonville City Councilman Reggie Gaffney‘s license plate that he reported stolen in 2016: it wasn’t stolen at all, and the councilman did nothing wrong by reporting it stolen then using it anyway.

This pronouncement came forth Wednesday afternoon from Sheriff Mike Williams, closing the door on an investigation of inconsistencies regarding Gaffney’s license plate with a media release depicting a chain of events closer to a comedy of errors than a criminal conspiracy.

Gaffney, who told officers that he couldn’t remember if he’d reported the tag stolen or not, saw his exculpatory narrative amplified by the city’s chief lawman.

“Our Integrity Unit investigated and determined that no laws were broken,” Sheriff Williams wrote.

Gaffney has two cars of the same “model and type,” and both have “specialty license plates,” Williams wrote.

Unbeknownst to Gaffney when he reported his tag stolen while one of those cars was at the repair shop without a tag: the repair shop apparently had a habit of removing tags on vehicles in for service.

Williams’ version of events had no clear answer for why Councilman Gaffney simply didn’t ask the proprietors of the auto repair shop where the tag was.

Regardless of interpretations of Gaffney’s narrative, the Sheriff’s press release offers a resolution — and essentially validates Gaffney’s version of events, one that seemed improbable to many observers in the wake of the event.

Questions still remain for some skeptics, including one about why it took the Sheriff to tell a story Gaffney easily could have told to media members in the two and a half weeks since the initial incident.