Attorney for "disgruntled" officer accuses Chief Williams of making false statements to council, creating a hostile work environment, more....

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The attorney for Venice Police Officer Demitri Serianni has accused the department's chief of lying to city council (specifically citing the chief's answers to questions asked by Councilman Emilio Carlesimo), of creating a hostile work environment, and, by implication, of falsifying police records.

Winter Park attorney Gary Wilson, of the top-rated labor law firm Jill S. Schwartz and Associates, laid out much of the case that will be made against Chief Julie Williams and her two captains, Dave Dunaway and Tom McNulty, in a packet of documents that was sent to city hall on June 15.

Wilson is threatening the city with a potential lawsuit to be filed later this year if the police department does not mend its evil ways.

I am still analyzing much of the document for veracity and this site will publish the full document with analysis within the next 24 to 48 hours.

At first glance: this is a bombshell, the beginning of the end for Williams and her administration.


From a legal perspective, if even a portion of Wilson's allegations are true, criminal investigations by the FDLE should be warranted.

From a PR perspective, this opens up a political nightmare, not only for Williams, but for her staunch supporters, like outgoing Mayor Ed Martin and City Manager Isaac Turner.

Example: after laying out a preliminary case for the VPD being a hostile work environment, Wilson writes, "...it is our contention that Chief Williams was untruthful to Commissioner Carlesimo when, on May 25th, she stated that no officer had been told that he or she could not make a request for or had been denied written documentation, or had been admonished or disciplined for making a public records request. As you will see from the attached portion (page 2 of  [Serianni's] Annual Performance Appraisal), he is being criticized for precisely this very thing when he is admonished under [the Communications and Interactions headings] for public records requests."

A copy of one of the offending pages was previously published on Venice Florida! dot com and can be seen here (PDF file). Moreover, a bored-looking council was apprised of Williams' false statements by this writer on the same date, May 25. City manager Isaac Turner would later refer to my observations as "a rant" and claimed he could not understand what I was talking about.

Included in the document is a timeline written by Serianni stretching back to 2006. The timeline clearly shows a number of practices routinely adopted by the department to cover up wrongdoing by police officers and supervisors favored by Williams and acts of retaliation (over 100 internal investigations within a three-year period, e.g.) on the part of Williams and her staff upon any officers who might object.

City Attorney Bob Anderson has issued a memo dated June 18, stating that he needs to schedule a meeting with Williams, Turner, and Human Resources Director Alan Bullock to "formulate an appropriate response... and to develop a future course of action."

Anderson had previously ordered Williams to back down on several ongoing actions against Serianni, agreeing with Serianni's attorney that Williams is severely violating the set of state statutes known as The Police Officer's Bill of Rights.

...this story is developing...

In other news, Venice Florida! dot com is investigating allegations of racist and homophobic practices within the police department with regards to promotions and job assignments. When approached by this writer with some of the preliminary evidence, City Manager Isaac Turner kicked me out of his office stating he didn't want to hear it and implied that somehow I was racist for investigating allegations of racism.

...this story is also developing...