Atlantic Beach Commissioner accused of using position as influence

The Florida Ethics Commission says there’s “probable cause” that Atlantic Beach City Commissioner Jonathan Daugherty tried to use his position to get out of several traffic stops.

WOKV has obtained the results of an FEC investigation, which now calls for a public hearing to be set up to move the investigation forward.

On four separate traffic stops between 2011 and last August, various Atlantic Beach police officers told the FEC Daugherty noted his position as a City Commissioner in some way.

The first came in August 2011, when Daugherty was stopped for not wearing a seatbelt. The report says Daugherty told the officer he couldn’t be given a citation because he was a Commissioner, although Daugherty says he doesn’t remember this encounter and doesn’t believe he would say that.

The second incident was April 2012, when an officer saw Daugherty “driving around in circles in a neighborhood.” The report says Daugherty told the officer he was a Commissioner told by the police chief to check on the parks. The officer suspected Daugherty was actually impaired and believed “without a doubt” that Daugherty was trying to use his influence to get out of a DUI investigation. The report says Daugherty didn’t remember trying to sway the officer’s actions but would frequently check on parks to clear them out of any delinquent behavior.

At a festival in 2012, Daugherty is further accused of convincing an officer to let him park in a restricted area because he is a Commissioner, even though he was attending the festival in a personal capacity.

During a stop in August 2014, Daugherty was caught in a video recording saying” the officer knows him and normally would not pull him over,” according to the FEC. That stop was for riding a motorcycle without a motorcycle endorsement.

In a statement to WOKV, Daugherty calls the complaints “frivolous” and says he plans to appeal the findings. He says he did not show up to the first hearing because it conflicted with previously scheduled travel.

“I am disheartened in this whole process,” Daugherty adds.

He says he was never given any preferential treatment.

Atlantic Beach Mayor Carolyn Woods tells WOKV she’s “disappointed” by the early findings, but wants to see the rest of the investigation move forward before calling on any action. She says Daugherty is innocent until proven guilty, but if the complaints are sustained there will need to be steps toward change.

“It’s just very disappointing- every time I turn around, I think we’ve got thinks straightened out in Atlantic Beach and then something pops up,” Woods says.

Atlantic Beach recently installed a new Police Chief after the prior one was arrested for 18 counts of possession of a controlled substance, one count of trafficking codeine, one count of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia.