were ordered<\/a> to collectively pay $4 million to a former employee who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her during a business trip to Las Vegas. Her allegations led to Voudy\u2019s dismissal from the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office for \u201cconduct unbecoming.\u201d<\/p>\nThe alleged misuse of funds was first uncovered after Bell, Voudy and Zehler left the union\u2019s executive board in 2022. The new executive board began looking into the previous board\u2019s finances and discovered \u201ca pattern of suspicious and undocumented financial transactions using union funds,\u201d according to the closeout memo.<\/p>\n
Among the most suspicious transactions, prosecutors wrote, were the chunks of money the union board members had paid to themselves. In 2019, they awarded themselves \u201creelected bonuses\u201d totaling $15,000 in union funds, with $7,500 going to Bell, $5,000 to Voudy and $2,500 to Zehler, according to the memo. In 2021, they spent $6,000 in union funds to cover taxes they owed on their own, union-funded monthly stipends. Bell received $1,500, Voudy received $1,000, and Zehler received between $500 and $800.<\/p>\n
The men also used union funds to pay for Zehler\u2019s $1,500 iPhone, according to the internal affairs report. Zehler said the phone was for union business, though he did not return the phone after leaving the union.<\/p>\n
Other expenditures included over $2,500 for a security system for Bell\u2019s Palm Beach County home, according to the report.<\/p>\n
There were no meeting minutes or voting records to justify the expenditures, prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n
Zehler told BSO internal affairs investigators that he was not responsible for how union funds got distributed and that Bell and Voudy made most of the decisions. He said that he didn\u2019t know he should have returned the cellphone, and that he thought the money that the three of them had received was coming from the union\u2019s national headquarters.<\/p>\n
BSO sustained the following internal affairs charges against Zehler: engaging in an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, breach of confidence, and corrupt practices.<\/p>\n
Under the recent agreement reached between Zehler and BSO\u2019s attorneys, he will return to his position as sergeant and receive a little over five days of back pay. His disciplinary charges of organized scheme to defraud and grand theft will drop to one violation of \u201cdiscretion,\u201d which generally refers to a misuse of authority,\u00a0and his charge of corrupt practices will drop to conduct unbecoming.<\/p>\n
Zehler returns under a one-year \u201clast-chance\u201d period that will allow BSO to terminate him for any disciplinary infraction of a certain severity. He will have to submit a letter of resignation that goes into effect in April 2027, but can ask Sheriff Gregory Tony to revoke the letter once his last-chance period is over.<\/p>\n
The Sheriff\u2019s Office and Zehler settled the case \u201cprior to the conclusion of arbitration, avoiding the uncertainties, expense, and inconvenience of any further proceedings,\u201d the agreement states.<\/p>\n
\u201cJason Zehler is happy that he and the Sheriff\u2019s Office were able to resolve their issue,\u201d his attorney, Robert Buschel, told the Sun Sentinel in a statement. \u201cHe is thankful for the opportunity to continue to serve his community as a sergeant deputy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office declined to comment in response to questions about the decision to reinstate Zehler.<\/p>\n
Zehler had worked at the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office for 24 years prior to his firing. He was promoted to sergeant in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office sergeant who was criminally investigated and fired for allegedly spending union funds on himself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,112,16484,28,249,251,250,114,266,115,109],"class_list":["post-38755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-deerfield-beach","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38755","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=38755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}