Green Cove Council Race Takes a Biblical Turn

Ed Gaw's Brother Dan Campaigns Against Him for Alleged Identity Theft

Detail from the painting “Cain and Abel” by the artist Titian.

“Take some 20-year-old documents and go write a story about it.” —City Councilor Ed Gaw

Dan Gaw lives in Tennessee, but he plans to fly down to Green Cove Springs to support his brother Ed's opponent, Tom Centracchio, for City Council.

Unlike Cain in the Old Testament, Dan Gaw wishes no physical harm to his brother, but he makes no bones about it: He’s out to smite Ed Gaw’s candidacy. Dan Gaw says his brother stole his identity and commited a felony—conduct that should disqualify him from public office.

Clay News & Views has repeatedly asked Ed Gaw to provide his side of the story. Initially, Ed Gaw said he would, but he never scheduled the time to do so. “Take some 20-year-old documents and go write a story about it,” Ed Gaw said yesterday, declaring he had decided to say nothing.

According to Centracchio, Dan Gaw is coming to Green Cove on March 21. Centracchio would not comment further, either.

In a phone interview, Dan Gaw said the events go back to the days when Ed Gaw’s Hi-Liner fishing gear company was headquartered in Pompano Beach. Dan Gaw, a certified public accountant, was working for Hi-Liner from 1995 through part of 1997. As part of the job, he became a Florida notary public. He left the company—and left Florida—in 1997 for a job at a company in Tennessee.

Dan Gaw said he believes subsequent Florida notary renewal forms were likely sent to the Hi-Liner address, which, according to Dan Gaw, would have made it easy for Ed Gaw to renew Dan Gaw’s license twice, in 2003 and 2008 (effective until 2012). Dan Gaw said he knows his brother’s handwriting and said his brother appears to have forged his signature.

Dan Gaw himself was no longer eligible to renew his license because he was no longer a Florida resident.

One of the Applications

This is one of the two copies of a Notary Public renewal application that Dan Gaw said was falsified and submitted under his name, one in 2003, the other in 2008.

The necessary witness on both renewals was a Hi-Liner employee named Ron Morgan, who followed the company to Green Cove Springs when it moved here around 2014. (The company was recently rebranded as Rec-Com Outdoors.)

Under Florida law, anyone who submits false information, forges signatures, or uses a name other than their legal name on a notary action can be charged with a third-degree felony. The charge carries a possibility of five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

Handwriting Compared

Dan Gaw says the signature shown at the bottom of the notary application above is not his. It can be compared to the example of his displayed under his photo at left. Dan Gaw said he was in Tennessee and Mississippi, respectively, when Ron Morgan certified “under penalty of perjury” that Dan Gaw had signed the notary applications in 2003 and 2008, respectively.

Dan Gaw submitted the post card at upper left as an example of Ed Gaw’s handwritting. Below it is a post card that Dan Gaw says he wrote. At right is a detail from one of the notary applications in question. The highlighted samples from Ed Gaw’s post card at bottom left and text from the application at bottom right appear to have some similarities, particularly with the “E” and “L” characters.

Dan Gaw said witness and Hi-Liner employee Morgan also would face legal jeopardy if he knowingly witnessed someone forging a signature on a notary application.

Dan Gaw provided credit card receipts showing that he was in the Dixie Cafe in Memphis when he was supposedly signing the notary application of April 8, 2003, and he was in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on January 23, 2008, when the second application was signed.

Ron Morgan is also Ed Gaw’s campaign treasurer, or at least he was. Gaw told Clay News & Views that Morgan was only his treasurer for “about a minute” and no longer has that role, despite an elections document to that effect, signed by Morgan on January 6.

Ed Gaw said Morgan was only his treasurer “for a minute,” and he no longer has that role.

CN&V reached the Morgan household by telephone yesterday. Speaking through his wife, Ron Morgan declined to comment.

Dan Gaw said he brought the matter to the attention of the Florida Notary Commission and the State Attorney General’s Office, but neither was interested in pursuing a case because the alleged forgeries happened so long ago.

The Florida statute of limitations for forging a signature on a notary application is generally three years, but the clock only starts running when the crime is discovered or “should have been discovered.”

Dan Gaw said he only discovered last year that his applications had been renewed by someone else. He made the discovery after he requested records from the State of Florida in connection with some unspecified “legal issues” arising from the death of their mother.

“I was like, ‘Man!’ And I knew the minute that I looked at it. And the funny part was that he filled it out by hand, right? So I could tell it’s his handwriting,” Dan Gaw told Clay News & Views. “And I’m like, ‘Well, that’s really weird because I wasn’t even a resident of Florida,’ right? And that’s part of the requirements.”

He also said that he did not think that his brother had hijacked his notary license in furtherance of some other fraud. He believes Ed Gaw was just being “lazy,” because renewing Dan Gaw’s license was easier than going through the process of getting his own.

When he learned that his brother had an opponent for City Council Seat 1, Dan Gaw contacted Tom Centracchio. This is from an email Dan Gaw sent to Centracchio:

My signature was forged, my identity stolen, and fraud was committed against the bonding agent and The State of Florida (Section 817.234(1)(b) of the Florida Statue as written on the application). Using my identity and forging my signature was poor judgment and absolutely makes no sense. I do not appreciate having legal documents notarized with my name and not knowing how many, what for, or why, and the potential liability that comes with it. In hindsight, it was a really stupid thing for him to do, and in my opinion the people of Green Cove Springs deserve better.