Duval County’s new school Police Chief has a connection to Kent Stermon case

As the academic year nears its end, law enforcement in Jacksonville-area public schools has a new beginning.

But a routine personnel announcement may remind some of a sordid chapter in recent Florida history, one yoked to the Governor himself

Jackson Short will be the new Police Chief. Short, who was then a recently hired investigator for the 4th Circuit State Attorney’s Office (SAO), was first named in Daily Mail reporting on Kent Stermon’s apparently self-inflicted death amid scandal in 2022.

In a note to loved ones reported then, Stermon, a former close friend of Gov. Ron DeSantis, urged one to “go find your own Jackson Short,” a mysterious statement that the SAO didn’t clear up.

“As to your questions about Chief Investigator Short, he and his family were personal friends with the Stermons for many years,” a spokesman told Florida Politics last year.

Before his stint with the SAO, Short was JSO Director of Investigations and Homeland Security.

Short will be the first permanent hire for the role since the resignation of Greg Burton from the same job. He left last year amid medical issues.

Stermon died by suicide after offering a young woman tickets to a Taylor Swift concert in exchange for sexual favors. After a series of emails sent by purported third parties, he gave her $1,500 and offered her more money, including $10,000 for a “lap dance” and $5,000 for “Facetime sex.”

The victim refused those solicitations, but was pressured into going topless and showing Stermon her bare breasts for 30 seconds, which she was compelled to time on her smartphone’s stopwatch function. She then was compelled to hug him goodbye.

In a sign of how close he was to DeSantis, Stermon served as a Board of Governors member of Florida’s State University System, on the Florida Highway Patrol Advisory Council, and was Chair of the Governor’s Public Safety Transition Advisory Committee. The Board of Governors called him a “champion of higher education and student success in Florida” when he passed away.

Stermon, who rented a home to DeSantis while he was in Congress, was key to his 2018 campaign and had inside information on DeSantis’ moves, such as who he would support for  Sheriff when Mike Williams resigned.