Ethics case against Jack Latvala moves to administrative judge after panel rejects settlement

Jack Latvala is at the center of a curious twist in the Mayor’s race.

Three alleged ethics violations committed by former Sen. Jack Latvala will head to an administrative law judge after the Florida Commission on Ethics rejected a settlement between the Clearwater Republican and the panel’s advocate, then found probable cause exists to uphold the allegations.

Latvala appeared at the hearing and gave testimony, saying it was the first chance he’s had to refute the allegations that he groped and made sexually insensitive comments to a Senate staffer and engaged in a consensual affair with a lobbyist.

“I’ve been waiting four and a half years for the opportunity to, in a public forum, tell my side of this case,” Latvala said. “My not fighting stops today. I didn’t do what (the Senate staffer) accused me of doing. What I did was I had sex with a lobbyist. OK … I admitted that I had sex with a lobbyist.”

In the outlined settlement agreement, Latvala admitted “poor judgment” in his affair with a lobbyist, but insisted he never traded his actions as a lawmaker for any sexual favors.

“There was no quid pro quo. This was social relationships,” Latvala told the Commission. “If you’re going to start making that the basis for complaints — having sex with lobbyists — you’re going to be a very busy Commission.”

Allegations against Latvala first became public in a POLITICO story in 2017, citing six anonymous women, including lobbyists and Senate staffers, detailing allegations of groping and sexual innuendo. A subsequent Senate investigation into the matter revealed Latvala’s repeated sexual harassment and allegations that he would vote favorably for a lobbyist’s issues in return for sexual favors.

Laura McLeod later came forward in the Miami Herald as the lobbyist involved in a long-term relationship with Latvala that was consensual, but she also felt compelled to placate Latvala, who was a powerful Senator and chaired the budget committee. She said she was pressured to have sex with him in 2015 and 2016. Another woman, Rachel Perrin Rogers, a Senate staffer at the time, also came forward with sexual harassment allegations against Latvala.

Latvala, though, denied the charges of quid pro quo favors and refuted Rogers’ allegations. He nonetheless resigned from the Senate in December 2017.

Latvala is a veteran of the Senate, and his history in the chamber was apparent before the Commission took up his case. Two Commissioners, Don Gaetz and John Grant, both former GOP Senators who served with Latvala, recused themselves and abstained from taking part in the hearing.

Reflecting Latvala’s time in the Senate, they did so for opposite reasons: Grant, because he was good friends with Latvala, and Gaetz because they had a “publicly antagonistic relationship.”

Although two of the allegations were dismissed in the settlement agreement, the ethics panel found probable cause exists to uphold all three allegations, but only after a disagreement among some of the Commissioners. The case now heads to an administrative law judge, and if the charges are upheld there, could head to the Senate to enact punishment — a public censure, reprimand or up to $10,000 fine.

Commissioner Jim Waldman, a former Democratic House member, said the allegations by Rogers, that she went along with his groping and sexual innuendo because she believed Latvala was a powerful Senator with influence over her employment even though he wasn’t her direct supervisor, didn’t rise to the level of probable cause.

“Just because she thought it, doesn’t make it actionable,” Waldman said.

Waldman made a motion to reject a finding of probable cause for the three allegations but did not get support for the motion. He also made a comment referring to the staffer’s $900,000 settlement with the Senate to handle a federal employment discrimination complaint, saying she was “lucky.”

Commissioner Michelle Anchors, the only woman on the panel, took umbrage at the comment.

“I am sensitive that the almost $1 million from the Florida Senate was not made because the staffer was ‘lucky,’” Anchors said. “She did not get lucky. She had to bring a federal EEOC complaint and there was some merit to it which justified that payment being made.”