TALLAHASSEE — State Rep. Chris Latvala said Tuesday that investigators were ready to release the results of their probe into sexual harassment allegations against his father, state Sen. Jack Latvala — but the rumor was quickly shot down by the elder Latvala’s own attorney.
“My dad’s lawyer was advised by the Acting Senate General Counsel/Gray Robinson Lobbyist that he will have the report today,” Chris Latvala tweeted. “Stay tuned.”
But Jack Latvala’s lead attorney, Steve Andrews, told POLITICO he had not told Chris Latvala that information.
“Hey, it’s herding squirrels,” Andrews said in a text message, adding that the situation is like the “Rashomon Effect,” a reference to when one event is given different interpretations by different people.
It wasn’t the younger Latvala’s only tweet of the day regarding the investigation. He also fired off a tweet that seemed to imply a state Senate cover-up.
“I strongly believe the Florida Senate has had the special masters report on the allegations against Jack Latvala for several days,” he tweeted. “What are you waiting on?”
That tweet came with the hashtag #RevealTheTruth. Chris Latvala declined to comment when reached for this story.
Chris Latvala’s tweets stirred up speculation among state politicos, who have eagerly been awaiting the completion of the report. Hours after those tweets, Jack Latvala chimed in on the issue, saying Senate attorneys have not been returning his legal team’s calls.
“To those asking about Senate report,” he tweeted. “Hard to answer since Senate lawyer/lobbyist has refused to call my lawyer back last 24 hours.”
The Latvala camp has started calling George Meros, the outside counsel hired by the Senate to help with the issue, a “lawyer/lobbyist.” Meros works for GrayRobinson PA, a firm that has both lobbying and legal practices, and he has six registered lobbying clients.
It’s also unclear which of the two investigations Chris Latvala was referencing in his tweet.
One is being led by Tampa attorney Gail Golman Holtzman, who was hired by the Senate to serve as an independent investigator. Her task is to investigate allegations from six women in a Nov. 3 POLITICO article that Jack Latvala inappropriately touched them or harassed them.
A second investigation was prompted when Rachel Perrin Rogers, one of the women from that story, filed identical confidential formal complaints against Jack Latvala with both the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate at large two days later. In her complaints, Perrin Rogers described how Jack Latvala inappropriately touched her and made unwanted comments about her body over a four-year period working together. Perrin Rogers is the top aide to future Senate President Wilton Simpson.
The tweet from Chris Latvala prompted Perrin Rogers’ counsel, Tiffany Cruz, to call Meros, who will review the report before it’s made public.
“He said that’s absolutely not true,” Cruz told POLITICO. “He said he was actually reading a letter from Latvala’s attorney complaining about the fact that they didn’t have the report yet.”
Meros said it could be released sometime this week, according to Cruz, but he didn’t say definitively that the investigation was over and said some aspects of the report might need to be made redacted, which could take longer.
When contacted directly by POLITICO, Meros would give no information about the timeline and declined to comment.
When asked to confirm the tweet, Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for state Senate President Joe Negron, said, “I don’t have any updates to provide a this time.”
Marc Caputo contributed to this report.