Sweet Home Alabama
If you’re not one of the newcomers that developers are sardining into every formerly empty plot of land in our county, then you probably know our disgraced former sheriff Darryl Daniels wants his old job back and has officially qualified to be on the ballot.
Search his name and you will see how Daniels turned our beautiful little county into a media circus and we ended up looking like regulars on the Honey Boo-Boo Show for electing him.
For years he has been like a caffeinated squirrel frantically dodging and zigzagging to outrun penalties for laws he has broken and bad decisions he has made. Now, he is apparently breaking the law while campaigning to get elected to a position whose main objective is to keep people from breaking the law.
Darryl Daniels may not even be eligible to run for sheriff. I’m no lawyer, but I’m not charging you $400 an hour for my research either, so please read on.
Enterprise, Alabama
According to state law, one must be a “qualified elector” to run for public office in Florida. Maria Matthew, attorney and Director of the Florida Division of Elections, defined a qualified elector as a legal resident of Florida.
After Daniels’ not guilty verdict on charges of illegal arrest, destroying evidence and lying to law enforcement, the former Clay County sheriff moved to Alabama and continues to live in Alabama.
According to Alabama property records, on July 27, 2021, Daniels and his wife bought a house for $159,900 on W. College Street in a town named Enterprise. They have a homestead exemption on the house, and Daniels has an Alabama license plate on his car.
The Revenue Commissioners Office (RCO) in Coffee County, Alabama, is the equivalent of Clay County’s tax collector. Except, I hear their tax collector actually goes to work. A knowledgeable lady at the RCO told me that to get and maintain a homestead exemption in Enterprise, the homeowner must provide documentation and sign an affidavit swearing the home is the owner’s legal address and is “owner occupied.”
There are serious penalties if a homesteader provides false information to obtain the exemption. Within 30 days, the lawbreaker has to pay twice the amount of any taxes that would have been due if the homeowner did not have a homestead, plus 15 percent interest on the money. If payment is not made as required, the exemption holder will be sued for tax fraud.
On June 14, 2024, the day Daniels qualified to be on the ballot for sheriff, he signed a statement at our elections office swearing he was a qualified voter of Duval County. Daniels may have to pick his favorite fraud: tax fraud in Alabama or election fraud in Florida.
Electile Dysfunction
When candidates register to run for office, they must sign a statement vowing they have been provided access to read and understand the requirements of Florida Statutes which govern all rules and regulations of campaign finances.
At the same time, state laws require candidates to declare a treasurer to track and report all contributions and expenditures in the Division of Elections’ Electronic Filing System (EFS). The finances must be entered and saved not more than two days after a contribution is received or an expenditure made. The information is held on the ESF in a “pending status” until quarterly reports are due.
If the quarterly reports are not filed on time, candidates are fined $50 per day for the first 3 days late and, thereafter, $500 per day, not to exceed 25% of the total receipts or expenditures or whichever is greater, for the period covered by the late report.
Last September 7, Daniels signed up to run as a No Political Party (NPA) against Sheriff Michelle Cook. This was his third time to run and sign the statement.
Daniels designated himself the campaign treasurer, although as sheriff he was not known for his strict abidance to accounting best practices. During his entire tenure, he infamously spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on things that made observers wonder whether all the cheese done fell off his cracker.
Matthew O’Berry, who financed his own campaign for sheriff, dropped out of the race in January. He was several hours late filing his January finance report. Except Daniels, all other candidates filed their reports correctly and on time. He failed to disclose required information about contributors and was three days late filing his report for the year’s first quarter.
Most concerning, from the day he registered to run in Sept 2023 until the day he qualified on June 14, 2024, Darryl Daniels did not file a single expense report. But the former sheriff did have expenses. In December 2023, he had a $100-a-plate shindig dinner at the Hilltop Restaurant in Orange Park. There was also a notice of a meet-and-greet at the Winn Dixie. Even if all four of his supporters met in the parking lot for beer and Slim Jims, somebody had to pay, which should have been reported.
The day Daniels qualified, he listed his qualifying fee of $7,596.60 as his first expenditure in the race. On June 24, he reported $1,173.34 for t-shirts and $1,128.75 for yard signs in expenses, but still had not reported all other expenses.
Daughter’s Apartment
In another possible violation, Daniels listed his daughter’s Jacksonville apartment as his campaign headquarters. Florida law says campaigns must pay full market value for renting headquarters. If the space is donated for free, the full market-price must be listed as an “in-kind” contribution. However, neither in-kind nor monetary contributions can exceed $1,000. He has listed no in-kind contributions to date.
I talked with a representative of the SOE’s office about the former sheriff’s violations. It turns out that the state aggressively collects fines in state-wide elections, but local elections officials have no investigative or punitive power in local races. They presume politicians will keep their promises to follow the law. (Cue eye-roll).
Citizens, however, can do the local SOE’s job. They can file complaints about candidate wrongdoing with the Florida Ethics Commission.
Nixing the Name, Fiscal Fumbling
On qualifying day, Daniels appeared to forget another portion of FL law. Folks that happened to be in the SOE’s office got tickled as the short, stout man was very insistent his name appear on the ballot as Darryl “Sheriff D” Daniels. Watchers said the SOE representative expertly nixed that as “titles” are not allowed. He then tried to use Darryl “Chief” Daniels. That, too, failed muster.
Darryl was required to file his first campaign financial report on Oct. 10, 2023. For failing to file his expenses on time, Daniels owes $50 dollars a day for the first three days, and thereafter $500 a day. This means he has been in violation of campaign law for 274 days. For the first three days, he owes $150. From Oct. 14, 2023, until July 9, 2024, he owes our county $500 a day for 271 days, for a grand total of $135,650.
Daniels talked some of the local TV media into giving him a few minutes of air time and coaxed Don Coble, the editor of Clay Today, into twisting the truth like a pretzel to make the former sheriff look like his one term had been a success. Even so, the Daniels campaign appears to be rocketing down the road to Perdition, which must be over there somewhere by Enterprise, Alabama.
Wow! Great story Susie.
Wow, you really left no stone unturned in this article. The citizens of Clay County are not foolish enough to bring this shame back to our county. Darryl has broken the county’s trust once before. Why in the world would we trust him again. And based on this article, it sounds like he’s up to his old tricks. He is not a very trustworthy person and definitely not someone that I would want to have as sheriff. I personally am extremely disappointed in what he did to Clay County.. While given the opportunity to make history, this was not the history that we envisioned for our county. my recommendation head back to Enterprise, Alabama or Jacksonville, Florida, where maybe that behavior is acceptable. Just because his wife took him back does not mean that Clay County wants him back no thanks