Undisclosed: Civil suit, criminal probe collide in Davis’s $15M verdict
A SERIES
Part 1: Did attorney have inside track on FDLE probe, leaving defense in the dark?
Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 in a multi-part series examining the legal battle between the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) and ACSO Sgt. Kevin Davis.
GAINESVILLE – Sergeant Kevin Davis, a deputy with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO), filed a civil suit in February 2023 against his employer for alleged reverse discrimination and retaliation. Davis alleged that former Sheriff Clovis Watson, Jr., passed him over for promotion. However, in a twist not known to the general public but reported in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s (FDLE) investigative report, Davis’s civil lawsuit attorney, Bobi J. Frank, contacted FDLE that same day requesting that the agency launch a criminal investigation into the very officials named in Davis’s civil lawsuit.
The civil lawsuit and the criminal complaint were filed almost simultaneously. And for the next two years, the civil proceedings played out under the heavy shadow of a separate criminal probe by FDLE.
At the civil trial, the criminal investigation loomed large. Witnesses mentioned subpoenas. Former deputies testified. The implication was unmistakable: Davis had exposed wrongdoing and was punished for it. But now, with a $15 million civil trial verdict delivered and post-trial motions underway, a starkly different picture is beginning to emerge.
A February 2025 letter from Third Judicial Circuit State Attorney John Durrett confirmed what many had suspected but couldn’t prove at trial: the FDLE investigation was quietly closed with no charges filed – not against former Sheriff Clovis Watson, Jr., not against anyone.
Durrett’s letter was unequivocal: “Insufficient evidence has been developed and presented to establish a criminal act on the part of [Sheriff Clovis Watson, Jr.]…”
But crucially, that letter was not authored until after the jury had already returned its civil verdict – and it wasn’t made public until more than a month later. By then, the jury had already awarded Davis $15 million in damages without ever knowing the criminal case had been dropped.
Durrett’s bombshell letter couldn’t have been disclosed at trial because it didn’t yet exist. It was signed just 12 days after the jury’s Feb. 7, 2025 verdict. ACSO’s attorneys only learned of its existence in late March, after a Gainesville Sun article revealed the case had been closed. The Sheriff’s Office submitted a public records request and obtained the letter and investigative materials in early April, which was too late to include them in their initial civil post-trial motions.
What the public didn’t know, and what the jury never heard, was that the criminal case cited throughout the trial had already collapsed under scrutiny. Nevertheless, Davis’s legal team repeatedly invoked it to bolster a case that ultimately had little to do with criminal conduct and everything to do with shaping perceptions.
The trial record shows that Davis’s attorneys leaned heavily on the existence of the FDLE probe. They referenced subpoenas, criminal implications, and an ongoing investigation. But nowhere did they mention that prosecutors had cleared everyone involved.
More troubling still, five key FDLE interviews were conducted at Frank’s own law office, suggesting Davis and his attorney had more than just passive awareness of the investigation.
One of those interviews featured retired ACSO Captain Brandon Kutner, who admitted to secretly recording privileged conversations between Frank and her other clients, while she was also appearing to represent him. This raises the question: Was the entire criminal investigation a product of careful orchestration?
The jury never heard those details.
Instead, they heard suggestions of misconduct and retaliation. But even Kutner’s own actions raise questions: while seemingly represented by Frank, he recorded her speaking with another Sheriff’s Office employee, one of her other clients. Perhaps more troubling, records suggest that nothing within the FDLE criminal probe ever touched on Davis’s reverse discrimination claims, the very basis of his civil lawsuit.
Frank likely had detailed knowledge of the investigation, information that was never disclosed to ACSO’s attorneys, because FDLE’s own records show she sat in on and represented at least eight of the witnesses interviewed, giving her early and exclusive access to the investigation’s contents.
When the jury awarded Davis $15 million in the civil trial, ACSO’s attorneys objected immediately. They argued the award bore little resemblance to the damages of $115,724 as calculated by Davis’s expert witness. There were no expert witnesses or medical documentation, therapist records or medical bills to support Davis’s claim of mental anguish and suffering. In the wake of that verdict, the defense doubled down.
Post-trial motions filed by ACSO attorneys in both February and May argued that the proceedings were tainted by strategic omissions, misleading inferences, and the introduction of prejudicial testimony about a criminal case that ultimately went nowhere. ACSO’s attorneys are demanding a new trial or a complete reversal of the jury’s verdict. At the very least, they seek a reduction of the verdict, calling the jury’s award “grossly excessive, unreasonable, and unsupported by the evidence in the record.”
Alachua County Today has learned that Judge Gloria Walker has denied ACSO’s motion to amend its post-trial motions which would have allowed the Court to consider those newly uncovered documents, including Durrett’s letter and the FDLE’s summary findings. This means that ACSO’s requests for a new trial, a reversal of the jury’s verdict, and reduction in the jury award will have to rest on the defense’s initial post-trial motions. That hearing is scheduled for July 15, 2025.
Next, in Part 2: The Immunity Nobody Mentioned
One of the plaintiff’s key witnesses was granted immunity after admitting he illegally recorded his own attorney—while she was representing another client. The jury never heard a word of it.
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Email editor@alachuatoday.com
