TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Former Florida Department of Health data analyst Rebekah Jones announced on Twitter that she will turn herself in to authorities on Sunday night.
Jones, who was fired in May for insubordination after repeatedly violating department policy about communicating with media, helped create the state’s COVID-19 coronavirus dashboard. She has been vocal about her firing, saying that it was because she refused to go along with manipulating COVID-19 data.
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Jones had her home raided by investigators on Dec. 7.
“The state has issued a warrant for my arrest – even though the ‘crime’ is not related to the warrant,” Jones tweeted Saturday, referring to the December search warrant.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed there is a warrant for Jones’ arrest but is not disclosing what charges she faces until she is in custody.
“To protect my family from continued police violence, and to show that I’m ready to fight whatever they throw at me, I’m turning myself into police in Florida Sunday night,” she wrote.
BREAKING: FDLE found no evidence of a message sent last Nov. to DOH staff telling them to 'speak out' on any of the devices they took - the entire basis for the raid on my home in Dec. The warrant was based on a lie. We argued this in court just last week. This should be victory.
— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) January 16, 2021
The raid was based on a lie. Still, the state has issued a warrant for my arrest - even though the 'crime' is not related to the warrant, the scope of the warrant, and they didn't wait for a third party to review confidential information on my computers. The new allegation...
— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) January 16, 2021
... was issued the day after a Tallahassee judge told police that if they're not investigating a crime, they had to return my equipment. They didn't find proof of anything related to the warrant, so they invented something new to come after me for in retaliation.
— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) January 16, 2021
The search in early December, according to investigators, was regarding a message sent from a computer at her home address to health department employees. The anonymous message, sent on Nov. 10 to workers at FDOH, read:
“It’s time, to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know, this is wrong. You don’t have to be part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”
In her Sunday afternoon Twitter messages, Jones wrote that police did find documents that she received/downloaded from sources in the state. She posted that an agent confirmed to her that the warrant was not from evidence sought during the search of her home in December.
On Dec. 11, during a press conference, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that Jones became known because she alleged a conspiracy theory at the Department of Health. “It is unfounded and never proven at all. She was fired because she wasn’t doing a good job. You think that would be the end of it. Obviously, she has issues.”
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