Ex-Gulf Breeze mayor charged with filming naked teens must choose either new deal or trial

Court officials are still hashing out the next steps as to what happens to former Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray after a court hearing on Tuesday ended without a decision.

Gray's five-year prison sentence for taking secret videos of teen boys changing in his home was vacated in April on the grounds that Judge Clifton Drake gave Gray a stiffer sentence than state prosecutors and the defense agreed to when Gray pleaded no contest to charges stemming from the case in 2021.

Now that Gray, 71, knows he could face prison-time, his attorney Kim Skievaski and Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Emerson agreed Tuesday that they would come back before Drake and announce one of two options — they will head to trial in October or create another agreement. Gray did not attend Tuesday's hearing.

His charges include eight counts of video voyeurism, one count of illegal interception of communications, one count of illegally installing a tracking device and one count of stalking.

Ed Gray out of prison: Former Gulf Breeze mayor convicted of recording naked teens out of prison. Here's why.

Gray pleads no contest: Former Gulf Breeze mayor pleads no contest to recording teens in shower, may avoid prison

Why was former Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray's sentence vacated?

After Gray pleaded no contest to secretly recording teenage boys undressing at his home, he mistakenly thought that he scored too low on Florida’s criminal scoresheet to quality for state prison. Both the former mayor and the State Attorney’s Office expected that he would spend no more than a year in the Santa Rosa County Jail.

However, Florida law allows for prison sanctions when defendants face charges like Gray’s. Judge Drake based his decision on that law when he sentenced Gray to five years in prison in August of 2021.

“He found statute 775.082 sub ten, which actually excludes this statute, that Ed Gray was charged with, from this non-state prison sanction,” explained Chief Assistant State Attorney Bridgette Jensen. “The problem is that the sentence wasn't everyone's understanding. When Ed Gray entered the plea, he's thinking the maximum sentence he can get is going to be a year in the county jail because his score sheet shows only 10 points. That was everyone's understanding of the maximum the judge could do. The defendant filed a motion for post-conviction relief. and it was granted because basically at the time he entered his plea, he was mistaken as to what he could be sentenced.”

Gray's first sentence: Ex-Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray sentenced to prison for secretly recording teen boys in shower

What led to Ed Gray's arrest?

Gray was arrested Sept. 14, 2020, more than a month after agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement searched his home on Gray Oaks Lane in Gulf Breeze and seized several electronic devices.

According to the arrest report, investigators found eight videos depicting four males either nude or undressing in Gray's bathroom.

Two of the young men were 17 at the time the videos were taken and the other two were 18. Until one of the teens discovered a hidden camera, they were unaware they were being recorded and all four said Gray “pushed” them to shower in his house after they performed work around his home.

One of the alleged victims also told police he thought Gray was tracking him because the older man would unexpectedly show up where the teen was.

According to the arrest report, when the young man’s mother confronted Gray about the allegations, Gray initially told her he was recording the air conditioner repairman, but after the repairman left Gray said he turned the camera on because “he was suspicious that (her son) was possibly sexting in his master bathroom,” and he wanted proof before “confronting the teenager.”

The report said Gray also initially denied to the teen’s mother that he had been following her son, but told her there were a few incidents over the last year that “leads him to think I follow him.”

Gray resigns: Former Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray leaves city amid investigation

Those incidents included Gray turning up at a park where the teen was late one night, as well as showing up in the parking lot of a Gulf Breeze condominium complex where the young man had gone after telling Gray he was “sick” and couldn’t work for him that day.

Police said Gray eventually admitted that he put a tracking device on the young man’s vehicle in the fall of 2019. They said he told them he also changed out the battery on that tracking device every couple of weeks, then put it back on the teen’s truck.

Ed Gray's history with the city of Gulf Breeze

Gray was a former mayor of Gulf Breeze and longtime city employee, as executive director of the Capital Trust Agency, which issues hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to fund mostly construction projects throughout Florida.

He retired from Capital Trust Agency in 2020, shortly after FDLE agents raided his home and the investigation began.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Ex-Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray faces trial in naked teen voyeurism case