The investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into Keith O’Connor, Tampa’s top code enforcement officer, has been closed, a representative from the department wrote in an email to the Tampa Bay Times on Monday.
O’Connor’s lawyer said in a phone call that the probe was closed a week ago and found no wrongdoing.
The law enforcement department did not immediately confirm the outcome of the investigation.
“We anticipated this would be the result from the inception,” said the attorney, Ralph Fernandez. “There was never anything there, and they looked at it professionally.”
O’Connor, the husband of former Tampa police Chief Mary O’Connor, who resigned in 2022 after a viral golf cart traffic stop, was placed on paid administrative leave from his city job in September. A city spokesperson said in a text message on Monday that Keith O’Connor is still on administrative leave.
The investigation was regarding “a disposition of some lottery proceeds,” Fernandez said in September. He said it was “related” to the August arrest of another code enforcement employee, Aubrey Pierce, with whom Keith O’Connor shares decades-long ties.
Keith O’Connor was alleged to have cashed a winning lottery ticket on behalf of Pierce, who reportedly has outstanding child support payments, Fernandez said in October. The pair were alleged to have communicated about the ticket over text message, he said.
Keith O’Connor, a former deputy police chief, “may have played a role, most likely an innocent role in something, but the underlying act is not a crime,” Fernandez said. “You have to impute that Mr. O’Connor would have known the exactitude of child support rules and regulations.”
Records obtained by the Times show that Keith O’Connor claimed a $20,000 lottery prize from a scratch-off ticket purchased at a 7-Eleven in Tampa on March 7. It is not clear what he did with that money.
Fernandez said in October thatKeithO’Connor “didn’t get anything for whatever it is that he supposedly did. He didn’t make a nickel.”
Less than a month before the probe began, Pierce was arrested and suspended without pay from his city job. An arrest affidavit filed in August alleged Pierce’s involvement in an illegal tire-dumping scheme. He was accused of bribery by a public servant, unlawful disposal of hazardous waste, violation of litter laws and grand theft.
Fernandez said “everyone seems to be reporting” that messages between Keith O’Connor and Pierce regarding the lottery ticket surfaced during the tire-dumping investigation.
The genesis of Pierce and Keith O’Connor’s relationship is unclear, but Fernandez said it is “both personal and professional” and “spans decades.”
Pierce has served numerous prison sentences in Florida. In 2014, while incarcerated, he penned a letter to a judge that read, “If I am (released) soon I have a good job waiting on me with the City of Tampa… thanks to the help of Major Keith O’Connor of the Tampa Police Dept.”
In 2022, Pierce — who was hired by the city in 2023, according to the arrest affidavit — spoke at City Hall when the Tampa City Council confirmed Mary O’Connor as police chief. It was a disputed pick, as she was arrested as a rookie officer in 1995.
“I have been to prison several times,” Pierce told council members. “But I believe that everybody deserves another shot.”