Judge refuses to seal records in Daytona Beach Shores jail potty-training investigation

DAYTONA BEACH − A Volusia Circuit Court judge has denied an effort by two Daytona Beach Shores police officers to seal all records related to their jailing of their 3½-year-old son for potty-training lessons last October.

Judge Mary Jolley said Monday information relating to the matter that is, by law, non-public, such as names of children and home addresses of police officers, should remain confidential. But she said documents that are public records, including a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, should be made public with redactions.

"Ultimately I've got to balance where we are, where we've come from and where we've been," Jolley said. "So to the extent that on my ruling on both motions for confidentiality, I grant them only as to what is statutorily exempt under Chapter 119 and Chapter 39 and deny as to the remainder of the motions."

Chapter 119 covers Florida's public-records laws, while Chapter 39 deals with proceedings involving children, including Department of Children and Families investigations.

Michael Barfield, director of public access at the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said the judge's ruling provided "everything we asked for." Other than their home addresses, law enforcement officers are not entitled to any greater protections under the public records act than the general public, he said.

"We welcome Judge Jolley's ruling and it seems that there's, to me, been a U-turn down a dangerous road of darkness and secrecy that was sought by the officers in this case," Barfield said.

Most public records blocked by judge's order

Last Oct. 5 and 6, Schoenbrod and Long confined their son in the jail, once for 3 to 5 minutes and the second time for "13 minutes or something like that," Schoenbrod told a Florida Department of Children and Families case worker in a bodycam video provided by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office. On the second occasion, Schoenbrod said he handcuffed the boy, who cried and promised to use the potty.

The two were never arrested or charged criminally, although the FDLE recommended a charge that the 7th Circuit State Attorney's Office declined to pursue.

Daytona Beach Shores police conducted its own professional-standards investigation, the results of which have not been released.

In March and May, Daytona Beach attorney Michael Lambert, representing Schoenbrod and Long, filed petitions to keep the FDLE, State Attorney's Office and Daytona Beach Shores records from seeing light. According to Jolley, Judge Rob Sanders issued a temporary restraining blocking the release of documents.

Lambert made a case for keeping those barriers up, saying that some of the investigative materials include the name of the child, the identity of their home address and details that put the officers' family in potential harm's way.

Linda Norbut, an attorney with the Thomas & LoCicero firm in Tampa, appeared representing the Florida Center for Government Accountability and the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

She challenged what the petitioners seemed to be doing: "Trying to say that any kind of criminal investigation that ends up without charges brought, the entire investigative file could be made confidential."

She argued that the records in the Schoenbrod-Long matter should not be treated any differently than investigations into any other citizens or city employees. And the temporary restraining officer caused confusion.

"The problem is the vast majority of the court records in this case are under seal," Norbut said. "We know virtually nothing about the controversy in the case."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Shores officers who jailed son lose bid to seal investigation records