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Dr Erwin Jackson Discusses His Book "Commission of Corruption" · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is like getting the band back together. All
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: we need is Steve Stewart in the same room and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: we will be we will be strumming our guitars. Good
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to be with you, friends. It's second hour here of
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the Morning Show with Preston Scott, and I am joined
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  Speaker 1: by a longtime friend and someone that I think anyone
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: who lives in and around the Capitol City owes a
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  Speaker 1: tremendous debt of gratitude too, and that's doctor Irwin Jackson.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: How you doing, friend, doing very good? Yeah, cozy up close.
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  Speaker 1: And the book, which I told you is a just
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  Speaker 1: a absolute marvelous ride, is fighting the Commission of Corruption
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  Speaker 1: in Florida's Capitol City. Let me start with the question
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: you wanted to make sure that we got in because
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  Speaker 1: I think it's it's a good place to start. Why
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  Speaker 1: did you decide to write this all down?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it was important to me, very important to me
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  Speaker 2: for people to not forget this part the corruption we
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: went through for about a twenty year period, at least
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a twenty year period. I'm talking specifically the three mayors
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: that were under federal criminal investigation at one time, which
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: makes that's a unique situation at this period that's never
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  Speaker 2: occurred in any other city in the United States. According
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: to the FBI, we have to document or pass. Many
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: people in town want to forget about it. But if
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: you forget about it, then you run the risk of
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: doing it all over again. The problem is the citizens
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  Speaker 2: of tallahasse He must live with the knowledge that they
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  Speaker 2: elected three individuals, in my estimation and part in the
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  Speaker 2: federal government who were acting in unethical, self serving, criminal manner,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: and we kept doing the same thing. So I want
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  Speaker 2: to have this. I want to distribute this book. This
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  Speaker 2: is certainly not a money making operation. This is a
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  Speaker 2: gift to the community. Yeah, so everyone can have a book.
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  Speaker 2: So it will be here, and number one is they
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  Speaker 2: will have it and then hopefully it will be used
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  Speaker 2: in our future where we'll make more careful selection of
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  Speaker 2: our mayor. And that's what we're in a process right now.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I'm doing as well.
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  Speaker 1: And as we learned, not just the mayor, but the
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  Speaker 1: entire makeup of the city Commission. The character of the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: people that we elect matters a lot. For those that
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  Speaker 1: aren't aware of the story, where did this begin for you?
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  Speaker 1: Was what drew you into this fight?
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  Speaker 2: I was sitting in my office. I knew about the
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  Speaker 2: city doing some kind of green energy something, and a mother,
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  Speaker 2: a single mom with two children, came in. She had
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  Speaker 2: been crying. I thought she was maybe one of my tenants.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Something happened. She started talking about a biomass plant and
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that it was being going to be built across the
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  Speaker 2: street from where her house is. She didn't have enough
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  Speaker 2: money to sell the house and move, but she couldn't
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  Speaker 2: afford to live there with this burning and what turned
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  Speaker 2: out to be a biomass plant. It was going to
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  Speaker 2: operate twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
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  Speaker 2: smokestack industry bringing in a debris from outside of town,
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  Speaker 2: bring it in, and that was going to be this
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  Speaker 2: new green energy thing. So I said, that can't be.
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  Speaker 2: And then you go over there and you find out
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  Speaker 2: it is, and then I just started looking.
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  Speaker 1: It was worse than even she knew.
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  Speaker 2: It was so much worse that I was able to
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  Speaker 2: get a video of this similar plant owned by the
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  Speaker 2: same company, and to see the noise that it make.
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  Speaker 2: Road trained car comes in and a machine's big enough
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  Speaker 2: to grab it, turn it upside down and dump it
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  Speaker 2: into this furnace, and it vibrates so loud it was
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  Speaker 2: breaking windows up to two blocks away, really huge. You
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  Speaker 2: see that as a video, and that's what they want
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  Speaker 2: to put. And I had seven houses personal interest. Obviously,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I had seven houses that backed up to this property.
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  Speaker 2: The only difference between this between my property and this
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  Speaker 2: other was a four foot chain link fence and a
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  Speaker 2: property was owned by FSU. So you just say, none
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  Speaker 2: of this makes sense. There's got to be something going
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  Speaker 2: on here. So that's kind of how I got started.
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  Speaker 2: And I also wanted to say the book was also
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  Speaker 2: for the fifteen or twenty city employees to thank them.
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  Speaker 2: Their names aren't listed in a book, as you might imagine,
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  Speaker 2: but they came forward. They were feeding me information and
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  Speaker 2: without them, I wouldn't have been able to be successful.
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  Speaker 2: So I appreciate it, and I thank each of those.
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  Speaker 1: I will go ahead and tell you there's no way
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  Speaker 1: we can get into all of the details in any
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  Speaker 1: of this. It's why it's in a book. There you go. Absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: it's there's just too much. And honestly, we devoted countless
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  Speaker 1: hours on this radio program and countless articles with Steve
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  Speaker 1: Stewart at Tallahassee Reports disclosing, But you spent countless hours
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  Speaker 1: going to City Commission meetings and fighting it. The short
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  Speaker 1: version is the biomass plant. The project got pulled, but
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  Speaker 1: it involved members of the city commission at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Was that the first thread in the in the fabric
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  Speaker 1: of this thing that you started to pull on and
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  Speaker 1: see more.
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  Speaker 2: That was the first thing that actually encouraged me because
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  Speaker 2: that was the first victory. Okay, I was a little
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  Speaker 2: aggravated because I went to the state attorney and I said, uh,
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  Speaker 2: that this was not acceptable. They left, they left town
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  Speaker 2: and now William Meigs was the state attorney, and he
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  Speaker 2: said he was going to take it to the grand jury,
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  Speaker 2: and uh, then it just disappeared. And I said, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but they did this.
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  Speaker 1: They did that.
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  Speaker 2: You had t K Weatherills involved, His wife was getting
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  Speaker 2: paid off. The land was you know, and now you mean, oh,
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  Speaker 2: you're not going to have you know, you're not going
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  Speaker 2: to No one's gonna go to jail. There's no penalty.
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  Speaker 2: They just he said, ir, we appreciate everything you've done.
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  Speaker 2: He said, just accept the victory and be happy. He said,
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  Speaker 2: if they thought about if they tried to do these things,
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  Speaker 2: which they clearly were trying to do but they didn't do,
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  Speaker 2: you can't find them guilty of not doing something. So
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  Speaker 2: he said, they left town. The plant's never going to
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  Speaker 2: be there.
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  Speaker 1: But they left town. The commissioners and then subsequent elected
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  Speaker 1: leaders did not leave town.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. Then we go into other things, you know,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's the deferred compensation, and we had Alan Katz
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  Speaker 2: trying to figure out a way to pay off Debbie
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  Speaker 2: Lightzi so she would retire. And from that we went
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  Speaker 2: into Honeywell and as soon as you see with John
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  Speaker 2: Mark that he agreed to pay Honeywell forty six million
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  Speaker 2: dollars no bid contract. Right, It didn't take a genius.
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  Speaker 2: Some people think I'm pretty smart, kind of a deputy
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  Speaker 2: dog type guy, but it doesn't take a lot when
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  Speaker 2: doesn't make any sense someone in city to pay forty
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  Speaker 2: six million dollars and not even worry about getting another bid.
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  Speaker 1: It's simple and at the time, correct me if I'm wrong.
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  Speaker 1: The mayor, John Marx was an attorney and his law
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  Speaker 1: firm was working with Honeywell. Is that correct?
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  Speaker 2: Yep?
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  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: And it was amazing, and I'm in the book I
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  Speaker 2: talked about the growth of the contracts that the just
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  Speaker 2: almost months after John Mark gets this job working, he
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  Speaker 2: was gonna be a full time mayor, but he was
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  Speaker 2: working and for the law firm representing Honeywell.
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  Speaker 1: As soon as.
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  Speaker 2: John Marks got hired, the contracts he approved for Honeywell
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  Speaker 2: went from almost nothing to almost fifty million dollars. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think there's a relationship there.
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  Speaker 1: Why did you make the decision? Was a tactical to
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: start questioning the city commissioners and the mayor from the
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  Speaker 1: dias at the city meetings and filing ethics charges with
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  Speaker 1: the Florida Commission on Ethics, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: Yeahsolute, You know, I'm a businessman and a psychologist over
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  Speaker 2: a pretty frugal and what's a better way of getting
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  Speaker 2: free TV? Then go into the city commission and you
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  Speaker 2: start speaking facts and telling about information I had received.
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  Speaker 2: I got a lot of exposure. I met people like you,
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  Speaker 2: and there was very few people that even wanted to
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  Speaker 2: discuss this until after a couple, you know, a couple
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  Speaker 2: of years. I started in two thousand and nine, made
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  Speaker 2: my first presentation actually December twenty eight up till Gillam's
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  Speaker 2: trial was in twenty three, So you're looking at fifteen years.
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  Speaker 2: I kept looking and something else happened, and something else
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  Speaker 2: and something else, and my god, are we ever going
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  Speaker 2: to get through this? Now? Seventy five? I started when
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  Speaker 2: I'm sixty? Is that unbelievable?
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  Speaker 1: More to talk about with doctor Irwin Jackson again the
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  Speaker 1: book Fighting the Commission of Corruption in Florida's Capital City.
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  Speaker 1: Get it on Amazon dot com. Final segment here, Doctor
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  Speaker 1: when Jackson again. The book is available on Amazon and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: it's Fighting the Commission of Corruption. I love that Commission
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of Corruption. Talk about a perfect double entendre. Doctor when
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  Speaker 1: Jackson with us for one more segment here, are you
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  Speaker 1: satisfied with the results, what happened, the trials and the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: sentences served, the pleas that were reached.
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  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't, as to some extent, No, it would
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  Speaker 2: be too strong. Like many people when this was Phineas
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: they looked at Scott Maddox's. Oh his given five years,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: then he got out after eighteen months. White colored crime.
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  Speaker 2: You can get away with almost murder. Andrew Gillum admitting
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: to ethics violations, agreed to it, paid a fine, and
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  Speaker 2: then when they went to court locally, the citizens you know,
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  Speaker 2: couldn't decide if what he admitted to is true or not.
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  Speaker 2: And it makes your head spind but my response, and
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  Speaker 2: so I was angry like several people. But after a
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  Speaker 2: few days, you say, well they lost a lot a
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  Speaker 2: lot more. Now, being in prison for a year and
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  Speaker 2: a half, I guess it's better than five years. But
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  Speaker 2: until someone does that, I'm not gonna They can't really
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  Speaker 2: say it's no big deal if you've never done it.
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  Speaker 2: So I think it's a big deal. But worse Scott,
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  Speaker 2: he lost his his freedom for a while, He lost
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  Speaker 2: his ability to make a living, He lost his law degree,
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  Speaker 2: He divorced, his wife divorced him. He lost quite a bit.
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  Speaker 1: When you say lost his lot of greed, you mean
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  Speaker 1: he was disbarred. He was disbarred, Okay, yeah, ability to
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  Speaker 1: practice law, his ability.
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  Speaker 2: To practice law.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: The and then his wife. He has to explain to
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  Speaker 2: his children Okay now they're older, but still and he
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: has to live. He has to live with that. The
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: cops came out of a not the cops, but the
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: FBI and US attorney, and the judge ordered that these
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: antique cars that he had, they had to all be confiscated.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: He lost the house that he really liked. And I
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: mentioned in a book, I've heard that the mini Strippers
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: not even accepting his phone calls anymore. So he lost
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  Speaker 2: quite a bit. Oh, and I wound up buying to
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  Speaker 2: show that I'm willing to be a pretty good guy.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I bought the nineteen sixty six red Mustang that was
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  Speaker 2: auctioned off, and that money was helped to pay some
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: of his legal fees. So he lost a lot. Andrew
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  Speaker 2: Gillim had all sorts of things, all sorts of possibilities,
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  Speaker 2: and it came crashing down. He felt a long way
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  Speaker 2: hit the floor in the Miami Beach Hotel. Yeah, that's
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  Speaker 2: a big fall. So for people say, well, they didn't
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  Speaker 2: suffer much. John Marx totally embarrassed, keeping a low profile.
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  Speaker 2: And that's a wonderful thing. You haven't heard Scott Maddox.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: He's talking about anything. Andrew Gillim, John Marx.
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  Speaker 1: They had three consecutive mayors.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: The three consecutive mayors. According to the FBI, Tallahassee is the
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: only community in the United States who has consistently over
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  Speaker 2: three different elections had their mayors under federal criminal and
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: investigation at the same time.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, and this is an unplanned question. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're a registered Democrat.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a registered Democrat.
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  Speaker 1: I would imagine that was a little uncomfortable initially. No, no, No,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't uncomfortable.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: I go ahead, and I vote for people I used to.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the party protects and they're kind of they
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: kind of protect their own.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I'm not a good party guy, Okay, I not a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: good party guy. I vote for the best person in
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: any election. I'm a Democrat right now and have been.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I think there's more voting opportunities when you're a Democrat.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: That's kind of how I started, Sure, and I was
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: successful in doing this, whether you're a Democrat or republic
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and irrelevant.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think it matters, though, that this community has
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: been run by one party and had no real decent
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: voices to speak of?
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think that's a problem. And I guess as
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: a Democrat, I'm able to vote against the individuals, certain
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: individuals that would be put up to for an election. Sure,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be able to do that if I was
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: a Republican. On the other hand, you know, I think
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I could do more damage inside the party than I
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: can outside.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: What do you think the future is for this community?
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Is it based on what lessons they learned from this.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I think that would I think that would help. I
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: think that would help. I think we're heading in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: wrong direction. I think that's beeding up the amount of
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: taxes that go through. The people are running for elections
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: for all the wrong reasons. People can't find a job,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: so they decide I'll run for a mayor. You know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: community activists, community activists full time jobs. I think I'm
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: worried about a community. Hopefully this will help. And I
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: did the best I could spend fifteen years. I'm not
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: looking for any more corruption right now, though too. I'm
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: too out. I worked too slowly.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So you think, there you go. Good to see you.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: We appreciate it a lot.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Doctor Irwin Jackson with me this morning and again fighting
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the Commission of Corruption in Florida's capital City. I kid
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you not look I have. I have probably interviewed several
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: thousand authors in the twenty four plus years of doing this,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and in the course of doing that, I've been sent
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and handed a copy of a lot of books, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of them find their way to the to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the stores and to friends and so for this is
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: one of the only books that I have been handed
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: recently that is such a fascinating read. You would look
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: at this and if you started where you do chapter one,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: you would think you're reading a novel. You would think,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: there's no way this happened. And that's the beauty of it.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Not only did it happen, it's written down for you
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to see for yourself. Check it out, get the book.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: The Commission of Corruption twenty nine passed the hour