By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
In March 2025, Florida’s ethics commission recommended that Gov. Ron DeSantis censure and reprimand Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony for lying under oath on a driver’s license renewal application a month after DeSantis appointed him sheriff in January 2019. Had criminal charges been brought, the false statement could have been treated as felony perjury.
The settlement Tony accepted was a significant victory for him. It ended a long-running Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation and dismissed all but one ethics charge, including an allegation that he concealed his drug-use history and a murder arrest before DeSantis appointed him sheriff.
Fourteen months later, the governor has neither imposed the ethics commission’s recommended punishment nor formally rejected it, leaving the matter in bureaucratic limbo.
The governor’s communications office did not respond to a request for comment.
DeSantis’s inaction has again prompted questions in Broward: Why has a MAGA-friendly Republican governor who has repeatedly used his authority to label elected Democrats he disagreed with as incompetent and remove them from office left Democrat Tony untouched?
Some call it inexplicable. Others offer more speculative theories. A more grounded explanation may be that DeSantis is unwilling or unable to acknowledge a mistake when he hurriedly installed Tony as sheriff without a thorough background check.
Politically, conservative Gov. DeSantis and liberal-leaning Sheriff Tony could hardly be more different. They form one of the stranger pairings in Florida politics.
Tony has been a vocal opponent of expanded gun access, including open carry and permitless concealed carry, both of which DeSantis signed into law. Unlike Florida’s self-styled law-and-order governor, Tony has publicly pushed for police accountability and discipline for deputies who abuse or brutalize citizens.
Tony has also publicly embraced racial justice and Broward’s LGBTQ and Muslim communities. DeSantis, by contrast, pushed through the law critics call Don’t Say Gay, formally known as Parental Rights in Education; imposed limits on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies in government and education; approved redistricting that critics say weakens black voting power; and signed a law that, among other things, allows the governor and Cabinet to designate certain groups as terrorist organizations.
Yet Tony has also shown a willingness to accommodate DeSantis and his administration when the pressure mounted. Nearly a year ago, after publicly boasting at a county commission workshop that he would not cooperate with ICE in enforcing immigration law, Tony backed down after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened his job.
THE SHERIFF AND THE GOVERNOR
This is not the first time DeSantis has declined to act during Tony’s troubled tenure as Broward sheriff. On May 2, 2020, Florida Bulldog reported about Tony’s murder arrest in Philadelphia when he was 14. Tony was acquitted at trial in juvenile court. He has said he acted in self-defense. The court files were sealed and apparently expunged.
Two days later, DeSantis said this: “It’s not like he’s my sheriff. I didn’t even know the guy.” He added that Tony’s murder arrest would not have influenced his decision to name Tony sheriff.
“I don’t think it would have because it was self-defense. I don’t think it would make a difference, but it did not come up in the background check because he had never been charged or had ever had anything show up on the record,” DeSantis said.
Not exactly. In September 2022, Florida Bulldog reported that Philadelphia police homicide reports obtained and later released by FDLE said witnesses told detectives that Tony killed Hector “Chino” Rodriguez, 18, not in self-defense but execution-style and in anger after Rodriguez insulted Tony’s mother.
In 2022, after news broke about FDLE’s report detailing Tony’s false statements and a prosecutor’s decision not to bring charges, DeSantis told reporters at a press conference in Miami, “We’re going to review everything…in the coming days,” the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Whether he did or not, no action followed.
DeSantis made his view of Tony clearer a year later. During a CNN town hall in Iowa, held as his presidential campaign faltered, Jake Tapper asked him to name his favorite Florida Democrat. DeSantis hesitated, and Tapper revised the question, asking him to name one “who’s in the top 10.”
“I appointed a fella down to the sheriff of Broward County…he had a great life story. We put him in there, Greg Tony,” DeSantis said. Tapper didn’t know to ask why DeSantis would say that about a man who misled him before being appointed sheriff.
Florida’s nine-member Commission on Ethics has long been viewed as a toothless tiger because it can only recommend penalties. The governor alone has the power to impose them or reject them.
Tony’s case underscores that reputation. It is now six years old.
In 2022, the ethics commission voted 8-1 to find probable cause that Tony violated Florida law by concealing his drug-use history, his homicide arrest, and several other matters, rejecting its own prosecutor’s recommendation that no probable cause be found.
In March 2025, a new set of commissioners voted 3-2 to accept Tony’s settlement deal arranged by the same conflicted prosecutor. After the vote, the sheriff posted this quote on Facebook: “I am unshakable. Unbreakable. Unconquerable.”
Leave a Reply