Charges Recommended For Former Manatee Administrator Scott Hopes: MCSO

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — Former Manatee County administrator Scott Hopes is under investigation after multiple complaints filed in February, according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office news release.

The complaints alleged criminal violations of Florida’s public records, theft and notary laws, the agency said.

MCSO has recommended charges against Hopes. The investigation and related materials were forwarded to the state attorney’s office Tuesday for review.

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Pending that review and requests from the state attorney’s office for additional information or investigative work, the sheriff’s office won’t release additional details about the case.

Hopes served as county administrator from April 2021 to February.

Complaints made to the sheriff’s office claimed that Hopes reset his county devices before returning them to staff, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. It’s also alleged that he didn’t provide all records requested and committed other violations of the state's Public Records Act.

He told the newspaper in March that records on all his devices were automatically backed up remotely to a cloud service by the county’s information technology department and that text messaging on county phones was disabled in mid-2022.

“I’m not worried about it. Nothing was destroyed that was subject to public records. They can get all the phone records and emails they want,” Hopes told the Bradenton Herald at the time. “There are no documents that weren’t backed up.”