DeSantis Ignores Ethics Board, Lets Temple Terrace Mayor off the Hook

TAMPA — In March 2023, former Temple Terrace Mayor Mel Jurado failed to appear at an administrative law judge hearing. In June 2023, Jurado skipped a Florida Ethics Commission meeting. Both events concerned how the former mayor lied about her background, as exposed in a 2018 Tampa Bay Times investigation. The Florida Ethics Commission ultimately recommended she pay $10,000 for lying about her credentials on the City of Temple Terrace’s website.

Governor Ron DeSantis sat on that recommendation for more than two years. Now, nearly seven years after Jurado’s misconduct was first exposed, DeSantis has come to a decision: “no penalty shall be imposed in this matter.”

Her former attorney, Mark Levine, said he was not surprised by the governor’s decision. “She’s a big-time Republican and one of his supporters,” said Levine.

Those who don’t support the governor have not fared so well, even when there are no ethics complaints against them. DeSantis has removed multiple elected prosecutors from office. Federal courts found that his suspension of Tampa State Attorney Andrew Warren violated both the Florida Constitution and Warren’s First Amendment rights. DeSantis’s choice to let his ally Jurado evade consequnces is only the latest evidence of his reckless political style, where partisanship and personal loyalty take priority over ethics, laws, and even the constitution.

The 2018 Times investigation revealed that Jurado claimed a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois when it was actually from LaSalle University, a defunct Louisiana diploma mill shut down by the FBI. She also claimed two master’s degrees from Illinois, though the school had no record of one of them.

Jurado resigned in March 2020. She had previously been sanctioned by the Florida Department of Health for calling herself a psychologist without a license.