Elite Vaccine Clinic Investigation: 7 Things We Learned

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office released a 113-page investigative report regarding Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh’s organization of a vaccine clinic for those living in two of the county’s wealthiest ZIP codes Monday.

That pop-up Lakewood Ranch event at Premier Sports Campus, organized in February at the direction of Gov. Ron DeSantis and with assistance from his office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, offered the vaccine only to those living in the 34211 and 34202 ZIP codes.

Both ZIP codes fall within District 5, which Baugh represents. Baugh also serves as chair of the Manatee County Board of County Commissioners.

Handpicking these ZIP codes bypassed Manatee County’s vaccine lottery system that was in place at the time. Baugh also created a VIP list for the clinic, which included her name, though she ultimately didn’t receive the vaccine at that event.

A criminal complaint was filed against Baugh Feb. 22 by Michael Barfield, a paralegal for Denovo Law Services, LLC in Sarasota and the board president for the ACLU of Florida. In his complaint, he alleged that Baugh violated three Florida state statutes regarding misuse of public position, official misconduct and misuse of confidential information.

The sheriff's office investigated for four months, conducting numerous interviews and reviewing hundreds of documents, and ultimately "concluded that none of Baugh's actions rose to the level of a crime," according to a news release from MCSO.

In a statement, Baugh told ABC7, ““I am grateful for the hard work and diligent investigation executed by our Sheriff’s Office, which has confirmed what I have maintained all along — no criminal act occurred in getting vaccines to our most vulnerable and reluctant area. I look forward to putting this distraction behind me and refocusing this energy on reducing traffic, lowering taxes and revising the alarming growth in the size and scope of our local government.”

A Florida Commission on Ethics investigation into Baugh and the vaccine clinic is still pending, though.

With that investigation still underway, here are seven things we learned from the 113-page MCSO investigation report.

There have been at least 18 ethics complaints filed against Baugh.

According to the MCSO report, Senior Investigator Keith Powell with the Florida Commission on Ethics told the sheriff’s office that as of May 18 there were about 18 ethics complaints filed against Baugh for her involvement with the Lakewood Ranch vaccination event.

Powell told MCSO that he would hold off on his ethics investigation until the criminal investigation was complete.

County staff pushed back on limiting the vaccination event to two ZIP codes.

Public Safety Director Jacob Saur and then County Administrator Cheri Coryea told the sheriff’s office that they tried to dissuade Baugh from limiting the vaccination event to two ZIP codes.

Saur told MCSO that he “questioned (her) as to the legality of carrying out such a directive in absence of guidance from the state,” according to the investigative report.

Baugh responded, “I’m the chair. Is the chair not good enough?” according to the sheriff’s office interview with Saur.

Coryea, who was forced to step down from her position at the end of February, said she told Baugh that they should pull vaccine recipients from the county’s existing vaccine lottery pool, which had been approved by county commissioners.

Like what you're reading? Invite a friend to subscribe to free Bradenton newsletters and real-time email alerts.

The former county administrator objected to “manipulating the pool” by allowing residents from only two specific ZIP codes to receive the vaccine, according to the report.

Baugh responded to this disapproval by saying “the people in her district would love her” for hosting the event, according to the MCSO interview with Coryea.

Baugh told county staff and the MCSO investigator that the state directed her to limit the vaccine event to Lakewood Ranch residents. The governor’s office says otherwise.

Baugh told the sheriff’s office investigator that state agencies told her the 3,000 vaccines to be distributed during the event were intended for Lakewood Ranch residents, though specific ZIP codes weren’t discussed. The two ZIP codes selected for the event are located in Lakewood Ranch.

“When asked specifically if the guidance she received from the state inferred the vaccines (were) meant for the residents of Lakewood Ranch or if the event was simply meant to take place in Lakewood Ranch, Baugh stated she was told both; that the vaccines were to be administered to Lakewood Ranch residents at a venue within Lakewood Ranch,” the MCSO report read.

Saur and Coryea also said that the commissioner told them “multiple times that she was acting at the behest of Governor DeSantis,” according to the report.

Adrian Lukis, the governor’s chief of staff, told MCSO that “no mention was made of restricting the vaccine registrant pool by anyone,” including himself and DeSantis, according to the report. He mentioned that other state agencies might have directed Baugh, but she received no guidance from the governor’s office.

DeSantis’ chief of staff, Courtney Coppola, also said the governor’s office never provided guidance to Baugh on which residents the vaccination event should serve.

15 hours of staff time was used to create the separate vaccine pool for the Lakewood Ranch event.

Michael Hotaling, the county’s senior information technology manager, told the sheriff’s office that to prepare for the Lakewood Ranch vaccination clinic his department had to create a copy of the county’s existing vaccine pool database with those in the 34211 and 34202 ZIP codes pre-selected.

Then, they used “the same randomized selection process as with the previous (countywide) pool, but in this new, limited registrant pool” of about 5,500 people, according to the investigative report. From this group, 3,000 people were pulled to receive the vaccine.

Hotaling said “there was a significant amount of work involved with this task, and he approximated that 15 man hours were invested into this undertaking,” according to the sheriff’s office report.

Baugh claims she didn’t mean for her VIP list to automatically be scheduled to receive the vaccine.

Saur told the sheriff’s office that Baugh provided him with a list of five names to receive the vaccine at the event.

According to his interview with MCSO, she “told Saur that she needed to ensure certain people, including Rex Jensen, (Lakewood Ranch president and CEO), were going to receive the vaccination,” the investigative report read. “Baugh also told Saur that she was going to receive the vaccination herself, because she organized the event. Through e-mail, Baugh provided Saur a list of five names to be scheduled for receiving vaccines.”

The report stated that “Saur was specific in his statement in that he received instruction for the five names to be scheduled to directly receive the vaccine, not to merely be entered into the newly created candidate pool. Baugh was explicit in her instruction that these names were to receive the vaccines separate from the candidate pool, because they helped organize the event.”

Though Jensen and two former neighbors of Baugh who were on the VIP list received their vaccines during the event, Baugh and Jensen’s father, whose name was also on the list, did not, according to the report. Baugh said she didn’t receive the vaccine at this clinic because she was angry about the media coverage surrounding it.

According to the MCSO report, Baugh told the investigator that she “felt (Jensen) deserved to receive the vaccine due to his efforts in coordinating the event.”

She also said that when she didn’t see her name or the Keehns listed in the new registrant pool created for the Lakewood Ranch vaccination event, she submitted them to Saur.

Baugh told the investigator that when she submitted the names to Saur, she thought they would be entered into the pool, not automatically earmarked to receive the vaccine.

A couple added to Baugh’s VIP list say they didn’t know there was a VIP list.

Of the five people on the VIP vaccine list created by Baugh, two were her former neighbors, husband and wife Robert and Marie Keehn.

The couple emailed Baugh Feb. 2 to complain about the county’s “ridiculous vaccine lottery system,” noting that they had “registered the first minute of the first day” it opened.

“Someone registering tomorrow could literally go before us,” they wrote. The couple said the commissioners “dropped the ball,” adding, “sure hope you and your other members are doing something about this.”

Baugh later called to ask for their information for the Lakewood vaccine event. The Keehns each told the sheriff’s office that they thought they had been selected from a pool specific for that event at random.

In fact, they told investigators they didn’t know about the existence of a VIP list until they received a call about it from the Bradenton Herald.

According to the report, Marie “was extremely upset about their names being sullied in the press regarding this incident, but they were happy to have received their shots. She received no indication from Baugh that their names had been included on a separate list; she assumed that Baugh was merely verifying names were entered into an existing pool.”

Robert told the sheriff’s office that he received calls from friends and family in other states after they saw the media coverage of the vaccine event and a few acquaintances “stop(ped) talking to him due to their misguided perception that he and his wife had done something wrong,” according to the report.

By organizing the vaccination event, Baugh “attempted to obtain a benefit for herself and others,” according to the investigative report.

Though the MCSO investigator, whose name was redacted, found that there was “nothing criminal” in Baugh’s actions, they wrote that “evidence obtained during the course of this investigation clearly indicates Commissioner Baugh, a public servant, knowingly and intentionally attempted to obtain a benefit for herself and others.”

None of her actions were criminal in nature, as they didn’t involve falsifying or destroying evidence or official records, the investigator wrote.

Also, one of the charges in the criminal complaint, misuse of public position, isn’t a criminal violation and isn’t enforceable by the sheriff’s office, the investigator wrote.

Baugh might have been vying for political favor because of the event, the investigator said, making it an ethical matter.

“One might surmise that Baugh was attempting to curry political favor with Rex Jensen by placing him and his father on the list, or with Governor DeSantis as indicated by some of her emails constructed prior to the event,” the investigator wrote. “One might also surmise that Baugh was endeavoring to curry political favor with her constituents as illustrated by her alleged statement inferring they would ‘love her’ in return for facilitating the creation of the new, limited vaccine registrant pool.”

The investigator added, “However, while the practice of taking a course of action in return for favorable political consideration may present certain ethical issues, it does not, under these circumstances, warrant criminal indictment.”

Read the entire investigative report into Commissioner Vanessa Baugh and the elite vaccine clinic she organized in Lakewood Ranch here:

Manatee County Sheriff's Office Investigation of Vanessa Baugh by Tiffany Razzano on Scribd