EPA and fed prosecutors finally going after The Executive Group
Just who is in The Executive Group is the next big question

-- John Patten, 11/29/05
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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At least three current city employees have been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in late December, this in the federal courthouse in Tampa. Venice Florida! dot com has obtained the names of the three subpoenaed employees but is withholding publication to protect the employees from any undue harassment. All three work within the city's utilities department.

Other employees may have been subpoenaed as well. We have been unable to confirm the total number of employees that have been subpoenaed. An e-mail inquiry from Venice Florida! dot com to Dan Green that was sent earlier this month has not been answered. Green was the lead EPA criminal investigator in the cases against the city and the so-called Executive Group, an as-yet unnamed group of city employees and managers.

City Manager Marty Black confirmed on Monday that he was aware of the new grand jury subpoenas. According to Black and City Clerk Lori Stelzer, no new subpoenas for documents are pending at city hall.

Meanwhile, the city is preparing itself for a sentencing hearing on December 14 in federal court. Earlier this year, the city entered a plea of guilty in U.S. v. City of Venice (plea agreement -- Adobe PDF file).

While it is unclear exactly who the named defendants are in the current batch of subpoenas, it seems fairly clear that federal prosecutors are now going after individual members of the so-called Executive Group. The subpoenaed grand jury appearances will follow about a week after the city appears for final sentencing in U.S. vs. City of Venice. In that case, the city agreed to plead guilty to three counts of violating federal law involving intentional illegal spills and falsification of documents. The city also agreed to aid prosecutors in collecting evidence against an unnamed group of city employees, euphemized in the plea agreement as The Executive Group.

There has been no solid confirming information as to exactly who the feds are referring to when they used the nickname The Executive Group. Speculation from evidence uncovered by Venice Florida! dot com indicates that former utilities heads John Lane and Patricia Wilson are a nearly dead-certain given. Based on our knowledge of who knew what and who did what, other possible candidates for indictment include former city manager George Hunt, Mayor Dean Calamaras, and former utils supervisors John Saputo, Shane Saputo and John Brennan.

Charges against members of The Executive Group will most likely involve unlawful spills, falsification and destruction of documents and obstruction of justice. Based on events as known, additional charges could include counts of extortion, witness tampering and coercion, this all as a by-product of the reign of terror that the city and utilities management held over utilities employees, a situation that the mayor once referred to as Saputo World.

Calamaras has repeatedly denied that he is under any investigation and, to be fair, is considered to be the least likely of the above names to be included in the indicted group. Nevertheless, the mayor did have some knowledge of events some time after they happened and yet still continued to back both George Hunt and John Lane as the pair staged a standoff with the EPA and harassed whistleblowing employees. Aside from one very public letter condemning some actions against employees that appeared to be public posing during a time of intense media scrutiny, Calamaras continually supported the pair to the media, even going to the point of continually publicly attacking this web site for its coverage of the then-ongoing investigation.

The city later agreed to settle out of court with three employees in three separate whistleblower lawsuits.

Even without the looming grand jury, Calamaras still has other legal woes. Venice Taxpayers League president Herb Levine is currently suing both Calamaras and former police chief Joe Slapp, this over a false arrest case that sent the then-75-year-old activist to jail for calling the city manager a liar at a city budget meeting back in 2002.