The producers of the reality TV show "Police Women of Broward County" fought hard to keep the contracts they inked with the Broward Sheriff's Office and four female deputies out of the public eye saying they contained sensitive "trade secrets."
But a Broward judge ruled that the contracts were relevant to the cases of defendants who have been arrested on the show.
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The contracts were released to the Public Defender's Office Friday and I obtained copies yesterday. They showed that Dep. Andrea Penoyer, the blonde "pitbull" who busts low-level street dealers with great zeal, and her co-stars are made $7,500 their first season. A ten percent raise pays them $8,250 the second season, and a third season will pay them more than $9,000.
The payments are unusual -- and problematic. When late Sheriff Nick Navarro pioneered the form with the COPS show more than 20 years ago, the deputies on the show were never paid. Navarro had said he didn't condone such payments because it presented a conflict of interest. The Public Defender's Office is arguing that the payments are in violation of the Florida Code of Ethics and defendants' right to due process.
Sheriff Al Lamberti always said he never read the deputies' contracts, but he maintained that the money was strictly for the deputies' off-duty work on the show. "It had nothing to do with their jobs."
The deputies' contracts do in fact demand that the deputies give producers access to their homes, families, and friends, but Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes contends it also involves on-duty work. He cites this line from the contract: ?I acknowledge that the program is intended to provide viewers with a behind-the-scenes look at the life of police women and that the services I render in and in connection with my job and as a result of my participation in the show, may involve ? hazardous activities [that may lead to] death.?
Another provision gave the producers the final say on the appearance of the deputies. Still another seemed to imply the deputies were contractually obligated to assist in obtaining consents from everyone appearing on the show -- including arrestees. The deputies agreed to "assist producer, DCL and the network to secure all necessary consents, permissions, and releases ... in connection with the production, distribution, advertising, publicity, promotion, exhibition and other exploitation of the program."
?The contract is for much more than off-duty work," said Weekes. "It specifically is for their on-duty work.?
Weekes' boss, Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, was a bit more pointed.
?Either the sheriff?s people lied to him or the sheriff was not truthful with the public,? said Finkelstein.
Lamberti didn't make himself available for an interview on the matter, but his office issued this statement: ?The female deputies involved were compensated for their off-duty time so that there was no financial impact to the Broward County taxpayers for any overtime. ? The Public Defender?s opposition to seeing accused criminals caught on cameral will have no impact on the way that I run the Broward Sheriff?s Office.?
The sheriff himself inked a contract with Discovery that directed $50,000 to a BSO non-profit from which the sheriff could then dole out contributions to local charities. Finkelstein said the contract amounted to Lamberti using the show for political profit.
?Fifty-thousand dollars is a lot of money and even though it may not be going into a pocket of BSO police officers or Sheriff Lamberti, it goes into a fund which the sheriff can then use to bestow gifts and favors upon other people which gives him back political currency,? said Finkelstein.
Finkelstein believes that the contracts should lead to dropped charges against 10 defendants arrested on the show.
?Nobody elected me or the sheriff or the state attorney to engage in reality TV show production," he said.