{"id":145284,"date":"2026-02-05T22:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145284\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T22:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:15:07","slug":"inspector-general-accuses-broward-tax-collector-of-campaign-misconduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145284\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspector general accuses Broward tax collector of campaign misconduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broward Inspector General Carol J. Breece has filed a formal complaint against Tax Collector Abiodun \u201cAbbey\u201d Ajayi, accusing her of misusing county resources during her run for office two years ago.<\/p>\n

Breece is asking a hearing officer to impose a $10,000 fine and issue a public reprimand. The complaint alleges violations of the county code and does not accuse Ajayi of committing a crime.<\/p>\n

The official complaint follows up on a report issued last May<\/a>, when Breece\u2019s office accused Ajayi of promoting her campaign during working hours at her taxpayer-funded job as operations manager of the County\u2019s Records, Taxes and Treasury Division.<\/p>\n

The Tax Collector\u2019s Office is a newly created elected position, and Ajayi is the first to hold the office. It was also her first run for elected office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to establishing that she participated in one podcast during office hours, the OIG investigation found that she appeared in a second podcast from her office after hours and used the County\u2019s email system for 44 campaign-related emails,\u201d the Inspector General\u2019s Office alleged.<\/p>\n

Her attorney, Larry Davis, did not dispute the allegations. \u201cThey were unintentional acts caused by the challenge of wearing two hats at the same time: one campaigning for public office and the other continuing her commitment to her county job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com<\/a> or 954-356-4457.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broward Inspector General Carol J. Breece has filed a formal complaint against Tax Collector Abiodun \u201cAbbey\u201d Ajayi, accusing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,28,249,251,250,114,266,109],"class_list":["post-145284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}