“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson
Gregory Tony has a plan.*
* Where I am from, we call it a goat fuck.
The plan is to blame Deerfield Beach for everything that went wrong on his watch, collect his feelings, pack them in a monogrammed BSO duffel bag, and walk out the door like a man who didn’t just spend seven years as the most powerful law enforcement officer in Broward County while his own deputies waited on raises that never came.
The punching-in-the-mouth part is what public records are for.
So I filed this this FOI request.
I know. The title alone. Give me a moment.
I’ve been told — by a source whose proximity to this situation I will describe as uncomfortably close — that Sheriff G hired a dedicated personal training staff at the BSO Research, Development, and Training Center (aka The Tony Gregory Center For Cactus-Shaped, Tequila-Powered Ice Luges, Artwork, and a Branded Shower Experience). Staff whose primary function, I am reliably informed, was to keep Gregory Tony in fighting shape. There is, allegedly, an older gentleman who appears in Tony’s promotional videos in a sparring capacity. His job, per my source, is largely that.
Sparring.
With the Sheriff.
On your dime.
I want to be clear: I don’t know this for a fact. I know it from a source. Which is exactly why I filed a public records request.
Because here’s the thing about the The Stevens Method — I don’t need to know. I need the records to either confirm it or force BSO to put in writing that no such records exist. And if they don’t exist? The absence of duty documentation for a compensated position is itself a finding.
Either the sparring partner has a job description, or he doesn’t. Either he has duty logs, or he doesn’t. Either his time sheets show something other than holding a focus mitt for the Sheriff, or they don’t.
We’re about to find out.
Here’s what I actually asked for. In writing. Formally. Pursuant to Florida Statute §119.07:
Records sufficient to show the job title, position classification, pay grade, and full compensation — including salary, benefits, overtime, and any supplemental pay — for all personnel assigned to fitness, personal training, sparring, or physical conditioning functions at the BSO Training Center from January 1, 2023 to the present.
Also: duty logs. Organizational charts. Hiring records. Video appearances. Whether their participation in BSO promotional content was, and I want you to savor this phrase, within their documented scope of duties.
I also asked — because I always ask — for records showing who authorized the creation of the position and under what authority.
If the answer is “Gregory Tony authorized it because Gregory Tony wanted a sparring partner and Gregory Tony was the Sheriff,” that answer needs to be in writing.
Now let’s talk about the milk.
For seven years, Sheriff Tony has pointed at cities like Deerfield Beach and said: your deputies aren’t paid enough and that’s your fault. You’re not funding the contract correctly. You’re shortchanging the men and women who protect your residents.
He said this while sheriff.
He said this while his agency diverted — <<checking notes, blinks>> — somewhere between $4.8 million and $8.6 million in personnel funds to cover construction overruns on a training center that started at $34 million and landed at $73.7 million like it had somewhere important to be.
He said this while change orders quietly added a $7.5 million wellness amenity package — sauna, cold plunge, and what I can only describe as a branded shower experience — to a facility already blowing past its budget like a man who just discovered someone else’s credit card.
He said this while spending <<checking notes, blinks again, sets down coffee>> north of $550,000 on signage, portraiture, quotations, and doctoral degree designations bearing his own name and likeness, installed throughout the facility like a man who wanted to make absolutely sure nobody forgot whose sauna it was.
He was crying about spilled milk.
He was also holding the jug.
Upside down.
Over your wallet.
Let me translate that into plain Deerfield Beach English.
Tony told your city, our city, my goddamn city, it wasn’t paying deputies enough. Tony then took the money budgeted for deputies and used it to build himself a Planet Fitness with better tile work and his face on the urinal cakes. Tony then blamed Brimlow & Co. for the deputy pay problem that his own budget decisions helped create. Tony then left.
He would like you to feel bad about this.
Fuck off, hoser.
I would like you to read the public records when they come in.
Look, maybe I’m wrong, and if you know ANYTHING about me, you know I am deeply wired to admit my mistakes.
There’s a principle in the FOI Request Engineering Playbook — which yes, I wrote, and yes, you should read it, it’s at REVOLT.Training, and no, this is not subtle — that goes like this:
Systems don’t fail because they are confronted. They fail when they are required to account for themselves in writing.
BSO has 10 business days under Florida law to acknowledge this request.
The clock is running.
The sparring partner — whoever he is, whatever his job title turns out to be, however his duty logs describe his professional contributions to Broward County public safety — is about to become a line item.
And Gregory Tony, who spent seven years telling Deerfield Beach it wasn’t doing enough for its deputies, is going to have to explain, in writing, what a personal fitness staff has to do with keeping crime down in the city he’s now blaming for his contract loss.
Everyone has a plan.
Until they get punched in the mouth.
With a public records request.
Welcome to MAOS.
Old timers will rejoice in its revival.
You new comers, hang tight, it’s one hell of a ride.
Just ask Steve Gonot, Al Capellini, Sylvia Poiter, Anthony Davis, Pam Davis, and a raft of others.
Chaz Stevens is a Deerfield Beach civic activist, First Amendment litigant, and IMLA CLE Faculty. He’s willing to spar with you – once you sign a waiver, commit to funding my charity, and bring two mouthpieces, as he has very heavy hands. Also, he files paperwork. REVOLT.Training | DeerfieldNews.com
