Rebekah Jones whistleblower closure letter authenticity questioned - Pensacola News Journal

Democratic congressional candidate Rebekah Jones posted a copy of a letter from the Florida Human Relations Commission this week that appears altered from the version on file with the state agency.

Last month, the commission closed its investigation into Jones' whistleblower complaint against the Florida Department of Health.

The commission notified her with a mailed letter stating there was not a "reasonable cause" for Jones' allegations of retaliation against FDOH.

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On Sept. 19, Jones posted the news on her campaign website that her whistleblower complaint had been officially closed. In a video, Jones repeatedly said she "demonstrated" a violation had occurred.

"The investigation looked at two points, the legitimacy of my complaint itself, and whether or not I was retailed against for filing it," Jones said in the video. "In the first, I did demonstrate that the state is putting people in danger. However, I did not incur adverse action as defined by the (Whistleblower) Act after filing the complaint with the commission."

However, the letter obtained by the News Journal directly from the Florida Human Relations Commission does not say Jones "demonstrated" a violation occurred, only that she disclosed a violation that qualified her for whistleblower protection.

The letter goes on to say that the Department of Health "articulated legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons" for firing her.

On Wednesday, Jones posted on her congressional campaign account an image of a Sept. 12 letter from the Florida Human Relations Commission in a post attacking NBC News political reporter Marc Caputo with a comment that said, "Someone let Marc Caputo know he's a lying sack of s--t."

Jones has been critical of Caputo's coverage of her. Caputo broke the news in May that the FDOH inspector general found no evidence of wrongdoing in Jones' allegations.

Caputo responded on his Twitter account Wednesday, noting that Jones left off the second page of the letter, which said there was not "reasonable cause" to believe Jones was subjected to unlawful whistleblowing retaliation.

Caputo followed up that tweet with a comment saying Jones was libeling him on Instagram and that she posted a doctored letter from the state Human Relations Commission. 

Jones' original post had several comments questioning if Jones doctored the image of the letter, and Jones' campaign deleted the comments and disabled further commenting on the post. 

The Instagram post was later deleted after Jones was contacted by the News Journal.

The News Journal obtained its own copy of the letter Thursday from the Human Relations Commission. Jones also provided the News Journal with a full copy of the letter she said she received from the commission .

Read the two versions below: 

Rebekah Jones' version:

Note: Jones' version was provided to the News Journal as a scanned image file. The News Journal converted the image to a pdf for to allow greater readability.

Florida Human Relations Commission version:

How do letters differ?

The two letters differ in several minor ways and two major differences in the content.

Jones, who was the complainant in the case, shared a version of the letter that says, "Complainant did disclose and demonstrated a) violation of law 'which create and presents a substantial and specific danger to the public's health, safety, or welfare;' or b) actual or suspected 'gross mismanagement' as defined by the Act, …"

The state's version of the letter, however, lacks the words "and demonstrated" and instead says "did disclose either a) violation of law …" then goes on to list the same a and b violations.

On the second page, Jones' version of the letter lists a specific Florida statute number and administrative code, which appear to be rules related to firing state employees. The state's version does not include those specific references.

The minor difference includes several font differences as well as how the phrase "Florida Statutes" is written. In the state's version, the phrase is italicized all five times the phrase was used. In Jones' version of the letter, the phrase is used six times and only italicized three times.

The News Journal provided Jones with a copy of the state's version, and Jones said in a text message she did not understand why there would be two versions of the letter but speculated the state was responsible for the discrepancies.

"It looks like they removed two words, but none of the content/meaning changed," Jones said. "Still says I disclosed a violation of law."

Jones said the letter was sent to her as a physical copy through the postal service.

Florida Human Relations Commission spokesperson Frank Penela told the News Journal there was only one version of the letter but he confirmed the letter was sent as a physical copy in the mail to the parties in the case.

The digital copy provided to the News Journal by the commission was a PDF file that contained metadata showing the document was created on the same day of the date in the letter, Sept. 12. The metadata shows that the file was created specifically at 10:03 a.m. from an original Microsoft Word file on Sept. 12, and the PDF file was last modified on the same day at 10:31 a.m.

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Jones alleged she was fired from her position as a data scientist with the FDOH in May 2020 for refusing to manipulate COVID-19 data. After her firing, Jones went public with her allegations.

Jones filed a complaint with the Florida Human Relations Commission over her firing, and the commission granted Jones whistleblower status.

In December 2020, Jones was arrested and charged with accessing the health department's computer systems without authorization after she was fired. The case is set to go to trial in January.

In March, the health department's Office of Inspector General investigated Jones' complaint and found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Jones has pointed to another Florida Auditor General's report released in June that found the health department failed to include 17% of COVID-19 deaths in its official counts in the early months of the pandemic, which she says vindicates her claims.

Jones' whistleblower complaint was closed by the Florida Human Relations Commission days after she turned down a plea deal with prosecutors in her criminal case.

Jones said she believes the state has lied before in her case when the governor's office said she had no access to important data, but prosecutors at the same time as part of the botched plea deal attempted to require she hand over data accessed while a state employee.

"I don't understand why they would do such a thing, knowing how much trouble it would cause them to be caught. But it made no sense to lie and say I never had access to data I exclusively managed and then turn around and threaten me with jail time if I don't destroy all the evidence and data they said I never had access to," Jones said.

However, the governor's office, in an official press release at the time, said Jones couldn't edit data, not that she didn't have access.

"Perhaps when I first published this weeks ago — which PNJ didn't think was newsworthy — they decided the language was too strong and are trying to backtrack, but the determination is the same either way, so I'm sure they'll fire someone over this. Or promote them. Who knows with these people," Jones said.

The closure of the investigation by the Florida Human Relations Commission opens up a 180-day window for Jones to file a civil lawsuit.

Jones said she is grateful the state closed the case so "we can sue" and that when she is elected to Congress, she will do more to protect whistleblowers.

"More needs to be done to protect whistleblowers from pre-emptive firing without cause as happened to me," Jones said. "I will be a champion in Congress for whistleblowers and anyone who exposes corruption and wrongdoing."

Conversely, Jones added that she would push for criminal penalties for "media accountability measures to ensure reporters who fabricate stories stop hiding behind the legal teams of these giant media corporations and start serving jail time."

Jones is facing Republican incumbent Matt Gaetz in the Nov. 8 election.

Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.

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