Ex-Gulf Breeze mayor who secretly filmed showering teens avoids prison time with new deal

The former mayor of Gulf Breeze has taken a second plea deal Thursday in his video voyeurism case that involved secretly filming undressing teens, but this time he won't go back to prison.

Edward Gray III, a 71-year-old who served as the City of Gulf Breeze's mayor from 1984 to 1992 and served on the Santa Rosa School Board from 2002 to 2010, pleaded no contest to eight counts of video voyeurism, one count of illegally intercepting communication, one count of cyberstalking and one count of unlawfully installing a tracking device for filming teens in the bathroom of his home.

However, instead of the five-year prison sentence Circuit Judge Clifton Drake initially gave Gray, he has now been sentenced to time served.

Gray's original sentence was vacated in April after the court granted Gray’s motion for postconviction relief. The motion was granted 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.

"Mr. Gray, I accept your plea of no contest as charged," Drake told Gray on Thursday. "In accordance with the plea agreement on count one, you're adjudicated guilty and sentenced to 19.6 months in state prison with credit for 19.6 months."

For the remaining voyeurism and communication charges, Gray will spend the next five years on probation and undergo mental health counseling. As part of the probation agreement, Drake ordered Gray to stay away from all public parks, and he cannot go to the Gulf Breeze Recreational Center. The remaining two charges were sentenced as time served in county jail.

Gray has already served 19.6 months at Jefferson Correctional Institute in Monticello, Florida, after his initial sentencing in August 2021.

After the hearing, Gray declined to comment to the News Journal about the plea deal.

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.

Ed Gray speaks: Ex-Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray spoke at his sentencing hearing. Here is his full statement:

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.”

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.

Why was Ed Gray's sentence vacated?

After the first plea, Gray 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.

Ed Gray's case reopens: Ex-Gulf Breeze mayor charged with filming naked teens must choose either new deal or trial

“He found statute 775.082 sub ten, which actually excludes this statute that Ed Gray was charged with from this non-state prison sanction,” Chief Assistant State Attorney Bridgette Jensen told the News Journal in August. “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.”

Ed Gray's history with the city of Gulf Breeze

Gray was a former mayor of Gulf Breeze and longtime city employee, as well 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: Ed Gray, ex-Gulf Breeze mayor, gets no prison time for filming teens