JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and the City of Jacksonville are likely headed towards a courtroom battle to determine the fate of $5 million in taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n
Action News Jax first revealed the existence of a list of more than 100 gun owners who entered city buildings while armed over a two-year period last May.<\/p>\n
The revelation resulted in a criminal investigation that concluded late last year.<\/p>\n
READ: Florida AG moving toward civil enforcement against City of Jacksonville over list of gun owners<\/a><\/p>\n No criminal charges were filed as a result of that investigation, but the Attorney General now plans to pursue civil action against the city.<\/p>\n \u201cJacksonville\u2019s firearm registry exposed law-abiding firearm owners to the very dangers that the prohibition was meant to prevent,\u201d said Uthmeier in a social media post Monday. \u201cMy office is correcting @SAO4Florida\u2019s misinterpretation of the law and moving forward with civil enforcement against the City of Jacksonville.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Attorney General is successful, Jacksonville could have to pay a $5 million fine.<\/p>\n Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13) blamed Mayor Donna Deegan for drawing the Attorney General\u2019s ire.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019re going to pay millions of dollars because she doesn\u2019t like guns,\u201d said Diamond.<\/p>\n While the list was maintained during Deegan\u2019s administration, State Attorney Melissa Nelson\u2019s investigation determined the mayor had no knowledge of the list\u2019s existence nor any involvement in its creation.<\/p>\n Instead, Nelson concluded the list was created at the direction of a Public Works manager.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we have stated from the very beginning, the records will show that Mayor Deegan and her leadership team were unaware of this action taken by an individual employee concerned about building security \u2013 and that the practice was immediately ended once it became known,\u201d the mayor\u2019s office told Action News Jax in an emailed statement. \u201cThe State Attorney, who comes from the same party as the Attorney General, conducted a thorough, eight-month investigation into this matter and concluded there was no deliberate misconduct. As the state pursues politically motivated deflections that waste taxpayer dollars, the mayor remains focused on addressing affordability challenges for the people of Jacksonville.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Attorney General brings the case to court, his office will have to prove the list was compiled or maintained with the knowledge or complicity of management within the City of Jacksonville.<\/p>\n If the city were to lose in court, Diamond said he wants to see the money to pay the fine come directly from the mayor\u2019s office staffing budget.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich is like enormous and millions of dollars to all of them. Let\u2019s take it from there. Let\u2019s do it where it hurts,\u201d said Diamond.<\/p>\n In a letter sent to Nelson\u2019s office, Uthmeier acknowledged he does not have the authority to pursue criminal charges in the case, but he did counter the rationale Nelson used to justify not bringing charges.<\/p>\n In the State Attorney\u2019s report, it was concluded, \u201cProsecution is not appropriate. The individual involved believed he was improving security and acted without any knowing and willful disregard of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n But Uthmeier argued the gun registry statute does not require a person to knowingly and willingly violate the law; rather, they must only knowingly and willingly create a list of gun owners.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether the person had a specific criminal intent is irrelevant here,\u201d the Attorney General wrote. \u201cIgnorance of the law is no excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and the City of Jacksonville are likely headed towards a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,6275,56464,9325,1376,28,57592,2239,969,1130,116,118,117,971,55599,44784,6278,634,1375,83154,9324,914],"class_list":{"0":"post-177538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-attorney","10":"tag-deegan","11":"tag-diamond","12":"tag-donna_deegan","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-florida_attorney_general","15":"tag-general","16":"tag-jack","17":"tag-jackson","18":"tag-jacksonville","19":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","20":"tag-jacksonville-news","21":"tag-jake","22":"tag-jake_stan","23":"tag-jake_stofan","24":"tag-james_uthmeyer","25":"tag-local","26":"tag-mayor","27":"tag-melissa_nelson","28":"tag-rory_diamond","29":"tag-state"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177538","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=177538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}