I read corruption into $31.87. My rules said prove it. The file said no.
Dan Herz walked out of a Deerfield Beach commission meeting on March 3, 2026, at 8:45 at night. The probable cause affidavit says he shoved the chamber door hard enough to kill the lock. Charged, not convicted. Hold that.
Then watch the number move.
- March 4. Public Safety Director Sean Gladieux tells BSO the mechanism might cost $1,500 to replace.
- Assistant Director of Municipal Services Eleonel Lorenzo sends an email estimate: $1,689.73. Eight hours for one employee. Eight hours for another. Three for a third. A flat $1,000 for “vendor parts and labor.”
- May 12. Deputy Betiana Clausell, CCN 18246, asks for a receipt. Lorenzo concedes the email was an estimate and produces an invoice. EuroCraft Industries, invoice EC-37354. The real repair bill: $600.00.
- Same day. Facilities Manager Steven Hill tells Clausell he doesn’t know who wrote the estimate email or where the eight-hour figures came from. The hours get corrected to 1.5. The running total lands at $1,007.01. That is over the $1,000 felony line in F.S. 806.13.
- May 14. Clausell re-interviews George Gotie. The claimed overtime never happened. No overtime was paid. His labor drops to $147.70. The total falls to $933.13.
- May 15. Clausell calls Hill and asks what the cable lock cost. Thirty-five dollars. The total lands at $968.13.
- May 19. The affidavit gets sworn at $968.13. Over $200, under $1,000. First-degree misdemeanor. Filed May 26.
I looked at that sequence and my gut said shave job. The number fell under the felony line on May 14, and on May 15 a padlock appears and moves it back toward the threshold without crossing it. Thirty-one dollars and eighty-seven cents of daylight. I typed the word corruption.
Then I stopped, because I broke my own rule. No misconduct language before an adverse finding. The four corners of the record decide. Not the gut. Not the pattern I expected to find. The documents, or nothing.
So run the documents. Hold yourself accountable, and raise your hand when you got it wrong. I jumped to the wrong conclusion.
That said, take note … when I make a mistake, I own it.
Also, if you’re cheering the $31 in savings, the felony mulIMG_0681ligan, stop and reflect on your life’s choices.
A deputy shaving a number to protect a defendant doesn’t need the padlock call. The total already sat at $933.13. She could have stopped. She added money.
A deputy padding a number toward a felony doesn’t build this file. Clausell took a $1,689.73 claim from the alleged victim and audited it into the ground. She killed the $1,000 placeholder with a $600 invoice. She cut eight claimed hours to 1.5. She struck overtime that was never paid, in front of the employee’s own boss. The City handed her $1,689.73. She swore to $968.13. She cut the victim’s number by $721.60.
My gut wanted a scandal. The record shows an audit.
The questions that survive are questions, and I’ll put them where questions go: in public records requests, on the record, to named custodians.
The sworn components sum to $982.90. The sworn total is $968.13. Gotie’s itemized hours come to 5.5, and $147.70 is the price of 5.0. Fourteen dollars and seventy-seven cents that don’t foot inside a sworn instrument.
The invoice is dated March 23, 2026 and marked overdue the same day. Hill’s May 6 email says he never received it and called the vendor several times before it appeared. Nine weeks between the work and the paper.
The file carries three repair dates. March 19, per the “completed last Thursday” email. March 23, per the case supplemental. March 26, per Hill.
Ocean Doors and Windows installed the door in December 2025. EuroCraft Industries invoiced the repair. Both sit at 9251 NW 112th Ave. The installer’s affiliate ruled that the installer’s warranty didn’t apply.
And whether a $35 padlock and three hours of a facilities manager’s email time count as cost to restore a door is a question the courtroom exists to answer.
None of that is a finding. All of it is a request.
I make my living holding agencies to their own paper. I demand that BSO’s numbers foot. I demand that sworn statements match their own exhibits. That standard is worthless if it stops at my keyboard. So it doesn’t stop there. The same rules govern what I write, at tighter tolerances, because I publish without an editor, a newsroom, or a legal department standing between my gut and your screen. The record is the only supervisor I have. My gut ran ahead of the record. The record won. You are reading the correction before you ever read the accusation.
Disclosure: I filed Public Records Request No. 35128 with the City of Deerfield Beach seeking records on this incident, and the documents quoted here came from that request and from the State Attorney’s case filing packet. I have a litigation history with the City of Deerfield Beach. I have a history with Dan Herz, and it isn’t warm. I filed a pro se amicus brief in the Herz and Adams ballot lawsuit on a legal question, not for the man. Weigh all of it.
Herz is presumed innocent. The charge is a misdemeanor. The door cost $600 to fix.
Press play. Tick.
