Orange-Osceola State Attorney Jeff Ashton plans to release a pair of legal reports on Orange County‘s “textgate” affair next Wednesday, with a news conference later that day to discuss the findings.

An email was sent Wednesday to the attorneys of county officials involved in the controversy, notifying them of the pending release of both a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation and another report with Ashton’s own findings.

Several top Orange County leaders face potential violations of open-government law because of actions surrounding a vote commissioners took on a paid sick-time referendum in September.

The group behind the paid sick-time effort, Citizens for a Greater Orange County, also has a pending civil lawsuit filed against those same county officials.

Much of the attention has swirled around lost or deleted phone texts. If those messages involved public business, they are regarded as public records that must be open to inspection.

It’s not clear who would be the target of the probe, although an untold number of texts have never been recovered from commissioners Jennifer Thompson and Fred Brummer; Graciela Noriega Jacoby, the chief of staff for Mayor Teresa Jacobs; and former Commissioner John Martinez.

Click here for the story in the  Orlando Sentinel

State attorney to release ‘textgate’ findings next week
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