Attorney: Boot camp e-mails lost

DAVID ANGIER

Other articles: State Attorney: E-mail Deletion an Error; State attorney: E-mail deletion unintentional in boot camp case; Florida Bootcamp Death Emails Missing
 

The News Herald

PANAMA CITY - State Attorney Steve Meadows raised his right hand Monday and said he was prepared to swear under oath that his destruction of potential public records was not an effort to hide information in the death of a boot camp detainee.

The News Herald recently requested copies of Meadows' e-mails from Jan. 5 - the day Martin Lee Anderson collapsed at the Bay County Sheriff's Boot Camp - to last week.

Meadows was able to produce only e-mails from March.

He said he had deleted e-mails from January and February, thinking that a copy was being held in a main server in Tallahassee through which all e-mail correspondence between State Attorneys' offices passes. Instead, he said, he found out his office has the wrong kind of account and the server wasn't keeping his e-mails.

"But I can remember in detail all conversations I had about this case during that time," Meadows said.

Anderson, 14, collapsed during exercises at the boot camp and died the next day at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. A videotape from a surveillance camera showed drill instructors throwing Anderson to the ground and hitting and kneeing him when he wouldn't or couldn't comply with their orders to resume a run.

The boot camp, which closed last month, was a military-style, medium-security detention facility for juvenile offenders.

Bay County Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Siebert ruled the death a natural one. He said Anderson died from an undiagnosed sickle cell trait blood disorder that was aggravated when instructors pushed him past his physical limits.

Meadows got out of the case in March when he asked Gov. Jeb Bush to appoint an independent prosecutor.

"I got the file late in the week. I spent all weekend right here at this desk reading it, reviewing every statement and reviewing the videotape," Meadows said Monday. When he was done, he said, he knew that his office's close ties with the Bay County Sheriff's Office would prevent him from keeping the case. "I thought it was just best to avoid any appearance of impropriety."

That decision is one of the few by any agency involved that has met with unanimous approval from critics of the investigation. The case is now in the hands of Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober.

Meadows said there wouldn't have been many e-mails from him during the time when his office had the case.

"I don't type," he said.

One of the few, he said, would have been to the Pensacola State Attorney's Office asking about their use of coroner's inquests, in which essentially a case is presented to a county judge in a public forum, at the end of which the judge recommends whether charges should be pursued.

Meadows said he thought the process would have worked well in Anderson's case so that the public could have seen the presentation of the evidence. Another alternative, he said, would be to bring the case to a grand jury, but that's a secret process and might leave questions or doubts with the public.

Meadows said he broached the idea by phone with Sheriff Frank McKeithen, who was not in favor. Meadows said the decision to use the coroner's inquest was taken out of his hands when he got out of the case.

A check of McKeithen's e-mails earlier this month showed no correspondence with Meadows.

Meadows said he talked by phone to Siebert shortly before the medical examiner made his autopsy findings public. Meadows said he told Siebert to take his time in making that release and be sure he was comfortable with his findings.

Siebert's autopsy results have been one of the most criticized elements of this case. A second autopsy, from Tampa Medical Examiner Dr. Vernard Adams, is pending.