Attorney for Fabian Basabe staffers files notice to sue the House

Image via Fabian Basabe.

An attorney for two former staffers suing state Rep. Fabian Basabe announced an intent to sue the Florida House.

Two separate investigations into allegations against Basabe this year both determined there was not enough evidence to conclude the Miami Beach Republican assaulted an aide or sexually harassed employees.

But attorney Cindy Myers, a representative for former Basabe aide Nicolas Frevola and former intern Jacob Cutbirth, claims in a notice of intent to sue that the investigations wrongly discarded information supporting both her clients’s claims.

The letter says that reports produced by Allen Norton and Blue, which investigated an accusation from Frevola that Basabe struck him at a public event, and by GrayRobinson, which later looked into claims by Cutbirth and Frevola of a sexually charged workplace, left out critical information from the accusers and other witnesses.

“It’s really maddening,” Myers said.

Basabe has maintained his innocence. “Moving forward, I should use better judgment in choosing who I allow access into my professional life, a lesson I have learned since embracing public service and a political journey,” he said after the latest investigation concluded.

The attorney sent the letter after successfully obtaining notes from the investigating firms.

In one example, notes indicate Allen Norton and Blue interviewed state Rep. Josie Tomkow, who was present at the event where Frevola claims Basabe slapped him.

“Rep. Tomkow told the investigators that, while she did not see the slap because it was a ‘crowded room’ and she was engaged in her own conversation, she ‘did hear a noise, looked up, and what [she observed] led [her] to believe [that Rep. Basabe] did [slap Mr. Frevola].’” Myers wrote in her letter.

“She explained that she was speaking to her mother, heard the noise, ‘looked up and saw Fabian’s hand near Nic[k] ’s face.’ She further stated that she held this belief that Rep. Basabe slapped Mr. Frevola because Rep. Basabe’s “hand was near [Mr. Frevola],” only a ‘few inches’ away from Mr. Frevola’s face.”

The notes also indicate that Tomkow’s mother was at the event. Still, investigators never interviewed her and did not include Tomkow’s testimony in a report that said no witnesses could corroborate Frevola’s claim.

Regarding the GrayRobinson investigation, Myers said investigators did not allow interviews to be recorded and then falsely represented some of the facts as stated. For example, she said both Cutbirth and Frevola alleged Basabe had shown them a picture of a naked man on his phone. The report said the men were shown an image of a man in a bikini, and that’s the characterization that ultimately made it into the report.

“The House released this false, misleading, and skewed report to the public,” Myers wrote.

She also said the House hired both firms despite each company having a stake in the political success of the Republican majority in the House. GrayRobinson has done more than $5.2 million in business defending Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies in court, and Marlene Quintana, who conducted the Basabe investigation for the firm, is a registered lobbyist, Myers notes. Allen Norton and Blue, meanwhile, regularly defend employers against employee claims.

“It is abundantly clear that the House hired two employment law firms, with the second also engaging in lobbying before the House, as well as engaging in substantial legal work for the Republican Party, with both standing to benefit from conducting false and misleading ‘investigations’ to help hide Rep. Basabe’s batteries upon and sexual harassment of Mr. Frevola and Mr. Cutbirth,” Myers wrote.

Frevola-Cutbirth NOI to Florida House by Jacob Ogles on Scribd