Officer formally accuses City Manager, interim Police Chief Dunaway of retaliatory actions and criminal acts for complaining about hostile work environment

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In a nine-page document (LINK - pops in new window), beleaguered police Officer Demitri Serianni exhaustively documents how the department and City Manager Isaac Turner have violated city policies and the law in an effort to duct tape the mouths of officers who complained to Turner about former chief Julie Williams.

Turner's response so far has reportedly been to privately tell council members that Serianni is a lazy cop.

Curiously, that's the same accusation that was leveled at Michael Frassetti by senior police officials when I first started asking questions some two years ago about why he was fired. Frassetti had been accused of wilfully destroying electronic police data, but was exonerated at an arbitration hearing.

The arbitrator in that hearing, Sarasota attorney Edwin Ford, wrote in his ruling that the police department and the city attorney's office were "overly zealous" in the case presented against Frassetti (see these YouTube videos of Anderson's closing arguments). Ford also wrote that the VPD's investigation as conducted by Lt. Mike Rose was "seriously flawed."

Frassetti was ordered to be reinstated, given nearly a year's back pay, plus the city had to pay for his wife's birthing medical bills as the city had dropped medical coverage on Frassetti and his family after the wrongful firing.

Venice Florida! dot com was the only media outlet that followed the Frassetti case, that covered the investigation, and that attended the subsequent hearing where Frassetti was ordered to be reinstated (LINK - pops in new window).

Serianni's complaint also accuses Turner and interim Police Chief Dave Dunaway of committing criminal acts in their pursuit of a way to silence the whistle-blowing cop.

Bear in mind that during his investigation of then-Police Chief Julie Williams, Turner interviewed some 50 VPD officers and employees, several of whom have told me that their complaints went far beyond informing Turner of wrongdoings by Williams.

Officers that have spoken to me have stated that accusations of wrongdoing and retaliation have been leveled against Dunaway, Captain Tom McNulty, Lt. Mike Rose, and Lt. Eric Hill -- virtually the entire current leadership at the VPD.

Venice Florida! dot com started a furor by asking for those notes, especially since the call for releasing the notes has since been echoed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Venice Gondolier, and even newly-elected mayor, John Holic.

Turner, in turn, is fighting every which way he can to avoid turning those notes over to the media, notes that, I am told, would validate most of Serianni's allegations and cast a bad light on the current interim police chief, Dave Dunaway.

Of interest and possibly a factor in this argument is the fact that Dunaway's wife, Bonnie Dunaway, is the legal secretary for City Attorney Bob Anderson and has been in that position for a number of years. So far, Anderson has been backing Turner's decision to withhold the interview notes from the public, stating the notes are not public records.