Osceola Court Clerk faces Ethics Commission discipline

KISSIMMEE – The Florida Commission on Ethics announced Wednesday that it has found probable cause to show that Osceola County Clerk of Court Malcom Thompson misused his position to intimidate court clerk employees.

Thompson now faces a public hearing and up to a $10,000 fine if he does not seek a settlement over "using his position to intimidate Osceola County Clerk of the Court employees in order to enhance his personal and political power," according to the finding signed Wednesday morning.

The investigation reviewed the same allegations that led to Thompson's removal from office in January. He was later acquitted in back-to-back criminal trials on charges of battery and assault. But the ethics panel looked at possible corruption rather than workplace-violence allegations.

Thompson was not in the courthouse Wednesday but his attorney, Mark Herron of Tallahassee, challenged the commission's finding.

"We're actually looking forward to a hearing in front of an administrative law judge," Herron said in a telephone interview. "We're going to vigorously defend this…I don't think there is any violation of the code of ethics at all."

The ethics complaint was filed by clerk's Human Resources Director Kim Zander, who first alerted the Osceola County Sheriff's Office in January about allegations that Thompson hit an employee and threatened her as well for reporting the incident, records show.

Removed from office by Gov. Rick Scott in late January, Thompson was reinstated in May after his acquittal of battery in the first trial and the second trial ended in a judicial dismissal of the assault charge.

The new findings stated Thompson tried to convince Zander and other employees not to report the Dec. 29 incident when he was accused of striking executive secretary Latifa Ramdani during an argument.

It also accused him of insinuating that they "could lose their jobs if a new Clerk was elected" in the then-upcoming primary election, which Thompson lost last month.

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Osceola Court Clerk faces Ethics Commission discipline