Spent three decades, and nearly all of my life's treasure, getting good at one job: catch those in power saying one thing and doing another, get the paperwork that proves it, and make them squirm under the spotlight until they answer. Records requests, ethics, inspector general, and Bar complaints, federal and state pro se lawsuits, and substantial media attention. That's the Stevens Method, my engineering approach to debugging city hall.
Highlights of the life's work: Florida gutted its own book-ban law after I applied it to the Bible; Ron DeSantis blamed me by name. Three Deerfield Beach elected officials went to jail on the back of my records work: Al Capellini, Steve Gonot, and Sylvia Poitier.
My beer-can Festivus pole is my love letter to free speech. It's stood in state capitols across the country, and I've used butt-plug-inspired artwork to mock bad actors (NSFW links below).
I'm not a lawyer, but I now teach CLE classes on public records and First Amendment law to the lawyers who work for cities and counties. The press has come along for most of it: CNN, NPR, The Washington Post, The Daily Show.
These days, I'm confronting the most Florida Man of Florida Men: Matt Gaetz. Sued in federal court this month over allegations of sex trafficking, he denied everything in one breath and, in the next, shitposted a screenshot of three, we assume, adult tushes on a beach, Instagram handles showing, captioned "Jane Doe Strikes Again!"
Gaetz is a licensed attorney, which means, in theory, the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar also apply to him. The Bar closed my first four complaints. Different conduct each time, and the Bar sent letters of advice instead of discipline. That's the point of the fifth. Along the way it has sent Gaetz two such letters, the last one reminding him that "a lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer."
So I just filed my fifth complaint, asking whether doxing the people suing you violates Rule 4-8.4(d), conduct "prejudicial to the administration of justice."
The Pensacola News Journal inked amazing coverage, with the story running across the USA Today Network. [PNJ (paywalled) | Archive copy]. Subscribe to the PNJ if you can. This is the kind of reporting that goes away when nobody pays for it.
Also, somewhat off the radar: this past summer Gaetz was appointed Vice Chair of the Triumph Gulf Coast board, where he helps oversee $1.5 billion in BP oil-spill money. I've begun to peel that onion.
About being that thorn, the highlights from a long list: I've been shot at and my dog was poisoned. It's cost me work and mostly keeps me from finding more.
Yet I persist. Leo Rosten said the purpose of life isn't to be happy but to matter, to have it make some difference that you lived at all. That's the whole reason.
It's about 6pm EST, here for two hours answering your questions. And then, on and off for the rest of the night.
Happy to talk about the Stevens Method, how to engineer a records request into a scalpel and not a grenade, how I've gotten massive press coverage in today's noise, why I keep going, or anything else. Go ahead, ask me anything.
Links:
The NSFW artwork of T. Chaz Stevens
I write about the investigations, with the records, over on Substack.
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